Calling all wordsmiths of Southampton…
It’s time to set you a challenge.
We’ll give you a week and you give the world some words.
As the Summer Sessions near their conclusion, it seems only fitting to shine a light on this glorious central hub of life in Southampton. As such, we’d like you to include Guildhall Square as a character or setting in your writing.
We challenge you to put your storytelling skills into practice. You’ll have a week to use your creativity to craft a piece of writing (story / poem) in 500 words or fewer that includes the given challenge criteria.
- It must include someone doing something for the first time.
- It must include (in setting, mention or dialogue) Guildhall Square (To celebrate Summer Sessions and Southampton’s wider cultural offerings).
- It must include the name of one of the acts performing in the Summer Sessions and the word “summer”.
Send us your finished pieces to editor@in-common.co.uk and we will publish a selection of the entries.
Check out an example below:
There’s always next time…
By Katie Isham.
A bus has just hissed its arrival next to the fountain. It sighs onto the pavement as the mid-morning passengers of wheels of either pushchair or walker variety comfortably disembark. A woman in her best floral skirt shuffles off and eschews her usual route to the library or gallery (depending on her mood) and instead paces past the wildflower corridor into the square.
Clacking wheels rumble across the patchwork paving. Convoys of trailing teens trundle in migratory formations around the periphery. The woman watches as her hand rounds the peeling plastic of her crutch. The overnight rain wasn’t ideal but she’s determined to do it today regardless. The increasing summer warmth of the day evaporates some, but the skaters still cut a fine line of spray as they veer across the square.
She moves her legs with the same effort she used to reserve for great runs and climbing. Such strength now merely shuffles her steadily step by step. She recalls Horace holding her by the crook of her elbow as they’d stroll and watch and squabble and soothe. Her elbow wavers without him.
She leaves the Guildhall behind her and aims for the benches. She stops by a group of skateboarders resting between sailings. She wonders what Horace would think of her plan. She doesn’t care what he’d think; he’s not here to have an opinion. She tuts to herself as she gets cross at him all over again.
A young chap with a cap and shorts far too large for him looks up at her from his crouched position fiddling with his wheels. She clears her throat.
“Excuse me,” she starts, he waits, “Would you mind helping me to give this skateboarding business a go?”
“You want to skateboard?”
“Indeed. Would you mind awfully?”
“I guess,” his face crinkles into a grin as he stands, “You done it before?”
“Not at all, so I may need a few pointers. So sorry,” she extends her hand, “I’m Daphne.”
He gently grasps it in a small squeeze.
“Hi Daphne,” her new friend says. She smiles at him; he’s wearing a Beach Boys t-shirt. Horace was a big fan; they both were. Daphne feels she’s made the right decision.
“You really want to do this?”
Daphne looks the young man in the eye and sees her own youth reflected back. She’d always been too scared, too nervous, too hesitant, too sensible, too pregnant, too busy, too old.
Daphne and Horace had commented to each other every time they’d seen the new craze gather speed. He thought it seemed fun. She thought it seemed dangerous. He said he would try it. She said he shouldn’t. He laughed. She frowned. He asked maybe next time? She agreed maybe next time.
Now she stands in Guildhall Square with a young man who is not her Horace and wonders where all their next times went. The young man pushes her gently. She stares straight ahead and begins her maiden voyage into her next time.
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