Amelia Wollacott is currently pursuing a master’s in English Literature at Cardiff University. Amelia submitted a portfolio containing a series of short stories and flash fiction pieces. All of these pieces were written during her undergraduate degree. Here are a couple of pieces that we have selected to give you an insight into Amelia’s literary prowess.
Sierra Nevada.
The car engine sang to the open road; the mountainsÔÇÖ curves hugged the skyline as we entered the state of California.┬á┬á
She had a kind of brutal honesty about her, we had been best friends since I could remember, but I always knew where I stood with her. Ours was the kind of friendship that blooms from the centre of your heart. The kind of friendship that begins as a seedling, then it would bake in the warm summer sun as the sky turns to the purple of wisteria. With time it grew into a vast tree, with many ups and downs but not enough to disguise the enormity of it, or the sheer beauty of it.
It was SophÔÇÖs idea for the trip; her family always loved Sierra Nevada. They would go every summer to a small cabin they rented near Lake Tahoe. I had never been, and she had spent the best part of the last two years trying to persuade me to go with her. She thought that after graduation I could drive us from Sacramento to the mountains, and I reluctantly agreed. We were going up a few days before the rest of her family, just to tidy the place up and settle in.
The mountains were covered with a rug of trees, green, yellow, and orange, but their tops were bare from the foliage and blanketed with snow. I always thought to myself, if the earth had a pulse, it rose through the mountains, creating their conspicuous silhouette.
ÔÇ£Make sure youÔÇÖre keeping an eye on where we are. IÔÇÖm relying on you as you should know the wayÔÇØ.
I chortled at Soph, as she was tuning the stereo, flicking through each station.
Soph was more of a country-western girl. In fact, she was an ÔÇÿAll American GirlÔÇÖ; her favourite country artist was Dolly Parton of course. Her taste ranged from Dolly to Josh Tuner, and there was no in-between. I had to ban her from listening to TurnersÔÇÖ ÔÇÿYour ManÔÇÖ on this trip for fear I would throw the CD out of the window if I heard it one more time. She could never focus on one thing at a time. Always in a daydream and away with the fairies some might say.
The Satnav had already died by this point, so we resulted in a handheld map. However, I knew Soph was useless with the map. She was too busy still fiddling with the radio stations.
ÔÇ£Will you quit that and just pick a station for godÔÇÖs sake SophÔÇØ I chuckled through semi-clenched teeth. We were always bickering.
The summer sun pierced through the cavities in the mountains as we headed closer to our destination.
3:24 pm
I pulled into a clearing and killed the engine. We got out; I had no idea where we were.
ÔÇ£I thought you were meant to be watching where weÔÇÖre goingÔÇØ,
I exclaimed, SophÔÇÖs face tensed.
ÔÇ£ItÔÇÖs not my fault you drove the wrong wayÔÇØ,
she declared; I ignored her I didnÔÇÖt want the argument.
My eyes glided around the evergreens. We were surrounded, and they were lined up one by one.
ÔÇ£I think IÔÇÖve found where we are, and we just carry along this road for a few milesÔÇØ. She assumed she was right as always.
We hopped back into my chevy, and I tried to ignite the engine. All that came out was a screeching, like a shrill womanÔÇÖs cry. After looking under the bonnet to see what was visibly wrong, we inevitably decided to walk the rest of the way, as there was no phone signal to call anyone. We knew we werenÔÇÖt too far away now from Lake Tahoe.
The woodland seemed ominously quiet, as we walked. Through the trees, we followed the sun as it changed to hues of orange. Before long, it was merging into the candyfloss pink sky like juice dissolving in a glass of water.
5:36pm
At first none of us moved, our ears trying to input the rumble from beneath our feet. To the left of us, a noise many magnitudes louder than thunder, rocks on the mountainside were coming for us. We knew the fault line near the mountain range quakes but didnÔÇÖt anticipate weÔÇÖd be caught when it did.
We ran harder than we ever had. The belly of the earth shook and cast us aside. Each rumble vibrated through my every stride on the tarmac.
I turned around to grab SophÔÇÖs hand behind me, as I knew she was never much of a sprinter. She never made it onto the track team in high school, no matter how hard she tried or practised for try-outs. She must have fallen a way back. I thought she was right behind me. She must have tripped over some fallen branches or some rubble. The terrain there was so uneven at the best of times. My mind was wrapped with anxiety, clouded with terror. I couldnÔÇÖt see her moving.
ÔÇ£Soph!ÔÇØ I yelled at the top of my lungs.
My heart stung and throbbed inside my chest as I sprinted back to her, hoping I would get to her in time to help her up before the rocks hurtled any closer. All I could see was her limp body, a heap on the sun-scorched grass. I know she called for me, but I couldnÔÇÖt make out exactly what else she was saying. The rumbling broke up her voice in the air.
These huge boisterous boulders saw us as their targets, falling towards us as a hysterical infantÔÇÖs tears would spill from their tiny eyes and into the arms of their mother. The rocks fell from the mountainÔÇÖs face.
The rocks were inches away from us. The evergreens stood down from their stations and surrendered. Remembering the many saplings and trunks that had fallen before them, like soldiers on the battlefield. They knew their fate.
Amongst this, I heard the quiet ping of my phone in my back trouser pocket. That was when my signal worked. It was a text message from my mum. The same message she would always send me when I would leave the house on my journey to school as a child.
Mum: ÔÇ£Be safe! Text me when you get there!ÔÇØ┬á┬á
First written in my second year of undergrad, I revisited the narrative again in my third year to focus on contemporary realism in short stories. The narrative is heavily influenced by Adam MarekÔÇÖs short story “The Stormchasers” (2013). I focused on a natural disaster as the backdrop and left the characters’ backgrounds open to the readers’ interpretation.
Texting.
Olivia woke to two messages from Alex that morning. It was one of the first things she saw when she flopped over to check the time on her phoneÔÇö8:34 am.
It is now 10:23 pm, and Olivia was listening to ÔÇÿOttolenghiÔÇÖ by Loyel Carner as she finally came to the conclusion that it is one of her favourite songs. This was after many years and hours of debate.
I wrote Texting as an exercise in the final year of undergrad. Whilst studying different modes of short story writing, I looked at micro-fiction and took inspiration from mundane activities such as looking at your phone in the morning. I wanted to encapsulate how such a small thing as a text could change the course of someone’s day.
