My three entries in the Tears in the Fence Flash Fiction competition were all shortlisted – but, no prizes this time. Here they are.

Strange Creatures

There is a particular creature men fish for. Its unique quality is that it has no constant form. When caught and brought to the surface it may be one of a million startlingly different shapes, no two identical, but all having a resemblance, such that you know they are the same sort. It’s very strange.

The creature lives at great depths, in total darkness, and it seems that, at that depth, in the dark, its shape is ever changing. But the moment it is touched by anything external, be it hook, light or even the subtle vibration of microwave detection, it fixes in that shape. It is a most tantalising creature.

Some fish for it constantly, hoping that each one they catch, when they see its newly-fixed form, will be the one they have always been looking for. Others fish in order to build collections, in as great a variety as possible, or in certain shapes. Another group, rather more subtle, let down their lines and, when the creature’s hooked, try to divine its form, releasing it when they’ve checked; many and bizarre are the shapes these fishermen visualise. And there are those, heroic, foolish or mad, who plunge into the depths, the directionless blackness, to embrace these creatures directly. No one knows what they experience, as none ever returns.

If you have any sense, you will ignore these creatures.

But if you must go fishing for them, do this. Instead of bait, sensing devices, cameras, let down, on a long line, your imagination. Lie back, on a boat pitching in the storm’s ferocity, or undulating gently on a sea of soft glass, above you clouds moving slowly, stars shining, a typhoon spinning, with the line tied to your big toe, Huckleberry Finn fashion, and let your imagination explore. Be still. Move fast as light. Be passive as plankton. Follow, with senses sharp, every nuanced subtlety of your imagination’s exploring. Take all the time in the world.

When you haul in your line, empty, of course, you will have no notion at all of the creatures’ shapes. But you will know all that’s important to know about these singular denizens of the deep.

And then, most serious piece of advice: do restrain yourself from telling others what you know. You won’t be understood. If you must tell, be very, very careful what you say, and to whom.

Newton’s Cradle

As soon as it was spotted, all the earth’s astronomers turned their attention to it. They quickly established that it was heading towards the earth unerringly, and that collision was inevitable. Further studies showed that it was identical in size and composition to the earth. By the time it could be distinguished with the naked eye it was clear that it was in every way – configuration of continents, location of cities, pattern of clouds – exactly like the earth. When it was the size of the moon in the sky it had become the most important thing in the world.

It was very beautiful, earth light. It was a new light, almost as bright as the sun, but without heat, and clear. You could stare full at it without being blinded. When it shone at night, night was banished. But people did not resent it. They walked placidly. Or slept in its healing light. Lunatics became lucid, in a new way. Mad dogs played rapturously with children. As the earth became larger in the sky, there was a great sense of exhilaration. Seeing the earth and feeling it, people knew at last what it was, the earth. They no longer felt orphaned. They no longer missed the god, whose absence had so disturbed them, with the earth in the sky.

But collision was inevitable. The moment had been calculated to the second. Now the earth filled the sky, blocked out the heavens. Now there was only earth, growing ever larger. The woman and man, at first hand in hand, then apart but close, stared up as the moment approached, saw clouds and mountains, fields and sheep, stream and wood. And figures, themselves, standing apart but close, by a stream near a wood.

At the moment of impact each saw herself exactly. Not as in a mirror. Or as others see her. But exactly herself seeing herself. Another, but herself. She said, ‘do you see?’ He said, ‘yes.’ At the moment of impact there was fusion, clarity, insight, truth.

And then a wrenching separation. For the other earth, from rushing towards theirs with such velocity, was now still in space. And their earth was moving away from it at the speed the other had arrived. Day by day they watched themselves recede, become smaller, the darkness of space grow around them, engulfing the world. Each shivered in a new aloneness.

The Third Moon

The third moon was the one that fascinated Regine and her friends.

The smallest of the moons, it had no commercial value. For it had neither the mineral resources of the second moon, nor the recreational possibilities – its low gravity and spongy vegetation making it a natural playground – of the first.

The quality that the third moon had was that it was weightless. Or, to be more accurate in the conditions of space, it had no mass. It was real, physical, composed of matter, and yet it had no more weight than a reflection of itself. It had, therefore, no gravity. It was neither drawn to the planet and the other moons by gravity, nor did it draw them to it. It hadn’t the gravity of a butterfly.

How was it there? What held it there? Why was it there? It was there. That was the beauty of its mystery.

It had a second strange quality: if any material was taken from it, that material rapidly acquired a mass appropriate to its composition. And any object that landed on the moon rapidly became weightless. The scientific implications were enormous.

But Regine and her friends were not concerned with scientific implications. They simply observed and contemplated the mystery of the body that hung in space, a form without mass, a presence that took no part in the physical relationships of the universe, which sometimes reflected, and sometimes glowed, which some called ‘the moon that is a window’ and some called ‘the moon that is a poem’.

Regine called it by no name. She observed and contemplated and waited, for the word to come that was the name of the third moon. And from that word, she knew, would come a new vocabulary. And from that vocabulary, a new language. And from that language, a new life.