Read the winning Indie 500 flash fiction contest entry

Felice Bell. Photo by Thomas Propest

Felice Bell was named the winner of the Xpress 2016 Indie 500 Flash Fiction Contest for her story, “Finding Astrid.” Bell’s entry was one of 55 submissions. The final judges were Jake Bible and Katey Schultz, who also named “Hitters” by Dan Damerville and “Ink” by Mare Carmody Borgelt as the runners up. Those stories will be published in next week’s issue of Xpress.

Finalists in the contest were Ellen Perry for “Bleak Midwinter,” Jim Himmelheber for “Please Pass the Stranger,” Lea McLellan for “The Date,” M. Jean Smith for “West Asheville 1987,” Rod Johnston for “Call Me Gibson,” Greg Candle for “The Day Hank Williams Came to Bunkum,” Maria Thomas for “In Sylva Time Stands,” Jan Meriwether for “Hanging at the Diner” and Scott Milhas for “Unaduti.”

Bell’s winning story appears in full:

“Finding Astrid”

They found my sister’s Honda jammed into dog hobble edging the French Broad. She hadn’t been home or to the restaurant on Patton for days. We hoped she’d left her boyfriend and run off to Nashville again. We didn’t like Kevin: He drank excessively and wore body spray.

The Honda sat in the impound lot downtown while it was checked for prints. If Astrid turned up, would she want it back? It broke my heart to think the word “if” in that sentence. It felt the way a dentist’s drill feels before the Novocaine starts.

After retrieving the Honda, I attacked it with organic citronella cleaner. I filled flesh-colored Ingles bags with crusty burrito wrappers, crumpled energy drink cans, and 14 Orange Peel ticket stubs.

Three years earlier, I graduated and left for UNC Charlotte to learn about drinking from Solo cups and pretending to be a different kind of girl. A year after that, Astrid graduated and worked at a Clock Restaurant in Greenville before moving home. She waited on her high school teachers; they whispered phrases like “unrealized potential.”

As teenagers, I could talk her into trespassing. There was a barn in Leicester with a deer stand on top. We watched it sway from below, then climbed up the ladder and sat up there. Wind snaked through the cracks between the boards. Our hair whipped around. Looking at her was looking in a fun-house mirror. I offered her my lipstick, and she asked, “Why are you putting on lipstick way the hell up here?”

When we were 7 and 8, I talked her into a midnight ride. I knocked our bedroom window screen into the rhododendrons below. We scraped our bellies against the sill and compared gouges. We took our mother’s mare out of her particle-board stall and rode bareback. Astrid sat behind me, and laced her fingers across the belly of my pajamas. We jostled along dirt roads beneath the Technicolor sunrise, singing songs our grandma taught us: “Shanty Town,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Clementine.” The newspaper-delivery man reported us, and we fell asleep in the backseat of a Crown Vic police cruiser.

When we were toddlers, we played in the tack room while our mother mucked stalls. We sucked sweet molasses from handfuls of horse feed. We hid with spiders in saddle-empty cubbies. We took turns lifting each other up to look out the window at the mountains buzzing blue in the distance.

My mother leafed through Astrid’s photos, white and worn at their corners. She told me to sell the Honda in the I Wanna. I said I’d think about it.
The next morning, I backed out of my driveway. Doves and juncos cooed and twittered. I listened to the crackling of Astrid’s preset stations until the voices turned crisp. Then, I turned the volume all the way down and opened the windows. I listened for Astrid as the wind whipped my hair around to stick to my freshly painted lips.

SHARE

Thanks for reading through to the end…

We share your inclination to get the whole story. For the past 25 years, Xpress has been committed to in-depth, balanced reporting about the greater Asheville area. We want everyone to have access to our stories. That’s a big part of why we've never charged for the paper or put up a paywall.

We’re pretty sure that you know journalism faces big challenges these days. Advertising no longer pays the whole cost. Media outlets around the country are asking their readers to chip in. Xpress needs help, too. We hope you’ll consider signing up to be a member of Xpress. For as little as $5 a month — the cost of a craft beer or kombucha — you can help keep local journalism strong. It only takes a moment.

About Alli Marshall
Alli Marshall has lived in Asheville for more than 20 years and loves live music, visual art, fiction and friendly dogs. She is the winner of the 2016 Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and the author of the novel "How to Talk to Rockstars," published by Logosophia Books. Follow me @alli_marshall

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

5 thoughts on “Read the winning Indie 500 flash fiction contest entry

  1. boatrocker

    Posting time 5:50pm, Thurs Aug 25, 2016 AD
    For any readers, is there any chance that the author/authoress of this article could post a link to read all the stories?

Leave a Reply

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.