Flash Fiction Award 2025
Highly Commended
Getting Away From It All
by Cath Humphris
‘Do something different,’ the counsellor advised. So they’re walking down a wooded valley after four miles of moorland. Sally’s legs ache, but she’ll endure it. Greg’s not said much about the cottage being nothing like the website, or the poor Wi-Fi.
When they reach the gurgling river Sally drops onto the oddly bouncy turf beside it. Her new kit is waterproof, after all.
The flask of coffee is still hot, but doesn’t suit their surroundings. Sally scoops a cup of water, and Greg says, ‘That only looks clean.’
She gestures behind them. ‘It’s naturally filtered. All those layers of turf and stone.’
He says, ‘It’s full of microbes. And liver fluke and leptospirosis from the sheep, deer and rats.’ That’s the most he’s said all morning. Sally doesn’t admit she’s caught a tadpole, just tips it back, while he adds, ‘What d’you think keeps the grass short?’
She doesn’t point out the chimney below, where generations of farmers must have drunk from it, so perhaps this verdant valley is working: better than yoga. Pleased, she repeats that last part to Greg, adding, ‘I’m glad we came.’
He looks up from the map and says, ‘Good.’ Then points to the trees. ‘There’s a shorter path if we leave the river.’
Sally pushes her fingers through the cropped turf. ‘I suppose this is a glade.’ She takes a deep breath, just as a cuckoo gives its triple call. ‘Imagine being here on a hot day, paddling. It won’t be deep enough for anything else by then, but imagine how delicious, how…’
Greg says, ‘Does everything have to be a fantasy?’ He folds the map, and Sally knows they never will come here again.
She watches her shadow ripple on the sparkling water, then lies flat out to look through it. In the depths shoals of tadpoles rush around, but not away. They could see the long, long way up past rippling weeds to her, but they’re resisting the fast, leaf-stained current, and have no other choice than to swim in great herds across the clearings.
She hears Greg fastening and hoisting the daysack. Then his shadow is beside hers, and she says, ‘You go ahead. I’m staying a little longer.’ To her surprise he doesn’t reply, just leaves.
Each year too many tadpoles hatch for all to thrive. Some abandon their vegetarian diet and become cannibals. Once their legs have grown, and their tails dropped off, the survivors will crawl out to seek solitary safety in the cool woodland where Greg is.
Sally thinks how tadpoles must mirror the experiences of the tetrapods hoisting themselves onto land, millions of years ago. Their little arms, that were used to pushing water, suddenly required to strain against gravity.
She feels the pressure of her own weight sandwiching her lungs against the unyielding solid cliff edge, and recognising that mermaids are an ancestral memory rolls over, unlaces her boots, then slips forward.
Sleek as an otter she enters the cool, welcoming water.
'Getting Away From It All' © Cath Humphris 2025. Published under license.
Banner image © Judy Darley 2025.