Kate Le Roux

“Lenny and Miss D” by Kate Le Roux

She doesn’t stand a chance in a classroom full of teenagers.  She knows it, and she doesn’t care. If she did she might do something about her clothes (comfortable is her only aesthetic) and her hair (thinning, badly cut, used to be red but now something closer to beige). She did not choose teaching, she always says, to be looked at. She is there to impart knowledge, skills and if the stars align perhaps even a spot of wisdom. She can see well enough through the spectacles she has worn since 1990; why should she spend her hard-earned mo...

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“A Lily, Finely Inked in Black” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #106

I should be dead.Perhaps I was, for a while. All I know is that I gave up, and I lay down in the snow, too tired to carry on. A year ago I wouldn’t have believed anyone who told me that I would ever be too tired to keep living. I would have laughed, said that fatigue was all in the mind, that the human body (mine especially) was more than capable of transcending tired – especially when the stakes were life and death. Keep going, keep suffering, and you might live. Or lie down, rest, and be certain you will die. In my youthful pride, my ...

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“Beast on the Brink” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #88

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, adjusting his tie, thinking it would be so easy if he could simply adjust the droop of his eyelids, the mismatched colours of his scars, his uneven hairline. Is it too much, to put on a collar and tie for this? He has already decided that there is no point getting smart from the waist down for a Zoom interview and is still in his sweatpants, his feet bare as he pads around his penthouse. Ten years, twelve books – he leans closer towards the mirror, turning slightly to the left, pointlessly examining...

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“It's Not About the Bread” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #79

Shandar woke to the sound of Turi yelling. He lay still for a moment, his eyes closed, listening to the loud clanging and thumping that he guessed was the sound of his friend throwing things around the campsite in a temper. “Stupid … blasted … pot!” he heard, as he sat up stiffly inside the tent. “Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why can't I remember?” He crawled out of the warm cocoon of his blanket, lifting the flap to see Turi kicking a tree with all his might, his stumpy boots on the ends of his short legs pummeling the trunk so hard that he was...

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“Three Miracles” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #77

All hope dissipated when she opened the door. There was someone already there, someone sleeping on the bed against the left hand wall of the tiny cabin. She stood there for a few seconds, frozen with cold and indecision but mostly with deep, deep disappointment, before she took a step inside and closed the door behind her. It was the only choice, really, even though the grey coat with the dark red stripe along the bottom could mean only one thing. He was one of them. All this way, all this desperate dreadful way, to find that she was back wh...

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“To the Lowly Dove” by Kate Le Roux

🏆 Winner of Contest #69

It was always Amrak’s job to deal with the birds afterwards, and he had always hated it. Every Temple day after the service he would have to wait for the worshippers to leave, then hang around while Father and the other priests finished up. As soon as they were gone the work began – mopping up the spilt blood, gathering the dirty robes into a basket to take outside to the waiting washerwomen, piling up the silver bowls to carry to the kitchen to be cleaned. Amrak had asked his father many times if he could rather wash the bowls, sweep the st...

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“Pink hair, Coffee and Nunchucks” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #55

Razia’s bright pink hair flipped briefly upwards as she jumped from the tree to land lightly on her feet. She paused a moment, crouching, surveying the forest, her keen eye resting briefly on a mochaleaf as it unfurled ostentatiously to her left. No orcs in sight, or annoying spying gremlins either. Satisfied that the way was clear, she stood up to retrieve her pack from a hole in the tree, her hand on the knife at her belt, then moved purposefully off along the path. The sharp needles from the tall trees cracked under her boots. Infernal fo...

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“Old School” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #54

The beige veneer on the big oval table is peeling, revealing the tacky black glue underneath. The room is close and musty; maroon carpet tiles, greying plastic chairs. As Miles folds his arms, his leather jacket creaks and the students around the table turn to look at him. “Sorry,” he says, even though he is not. He likes his jacket; he doesn't care what the kids think. “Nice shoes, Old School,” says a young man in a tank top five sizes too big for him, headphones around his neck as if they are an accessory."Thanks, Fez," Miles says, gr...

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“Gonubie” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #51

My husband is driving and my kids are in the back seats. For the first time in over twenty years I am in Gonubie again. The last time I was here I was still a teenager, and my grandparents were still alive, living in the house they built. I am about to drive past that house now, just to look. Someone else lives there now; I know that. I just want to see it, and to show my family the picnic spot at the river at the bottom of the road. I want to see the black mud pitted with mud-prawn holes. I want to see the river that holds so many memories ...

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“Keep Calm and Wait” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #49

My little blue car chugs along through the morning traffic. (Traffic! A fact of life quite detrimental to calm!) and I watch her temperature gauge nervously. Sometimes she overheats, and the last thing I need is to be stuck at the side of the road with a steaming car. I need to be calm. I am so tense that I feel ill, and of course I know that’s not going to help. I need to be well and strong or it will all come to nothing.  Work helps to distract me. I am busy, and the relentless school day doesn't care two pins about my own private r...

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“The Exile” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #44

He stood outside the door, his heart thumping painfully in his chest. He had come straight from the prison, still dirty, his collar torn from where a soldier had grabbed him during the arrest. But there was no time to waste. He had to say good bye and it would have to be brief. Her brother opened the door, embraced him despite the state he was in and invited him inside. He refused, of course, but he appreciated the gesture. He did not need to enter the house and sully the smooth marble floor with his filthy boots. He only needed to see her, ...

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“Some Mother's Son” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #37

I am sneaking out of the farmhouse and I can hardly believe my boldness. I am not a rule-breaker, and Mr Reece is a fair boss as bosses go, but it’s been weeks of rain and mud and horrible cows kicking over their buckets. Lucy’s invitation feels like hope, like an chance to leave the war behind and just be a girl again for an evening. The moon is out and the sky is clear enough to see my way as I walk the ten minutes through the little patch of woods between the farm and the cottage. I don’t dare use a light because of the blackout. I am so ...

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“Between Me and the Universe” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #36

Thursday April 3 2081I feel kind of strange tonight, restless, as if I’ve eaten too much candy. I just keep thinking that I’ll be seventeen soon and the most exciting thing I have ever done is sneak through the ducts to the edge of the dome during a storm with Vlad and Susan. It was pretty awesome – the dome creaked and groaned so loudly we could barely hear each other. They were both so scared of getting caught that we only hung out there long enough for me to carve half my name in the vinyl floor. I wrote “Mauro” but didn't get to my surna...

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“I Was Fifteen” by Kate Le Roux

Submitted to Contest #28

I was fifteen. When I think back on it now I need to remind myself that I was an actual child, sleeping at night in my pink bedroom, writing in a secret journal with a lock on it, teddy bears arranged on my bed. And what the heck, I have to ask myself, could a fifteen-year-old child know about love? I know the answer now, and it is this: depending on how you look at it, either nothing or everything. And anyone who has loved with the blinding purity of youth knows that those are almost the same thing.  It is summer, still school holidays...

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