Flash Fiction - The Clash of the Ash

femur61

The ash clashes, hurlers pump their hurls in the air, another point.
Proud parents cheer. Supporters of the club, through tradition, their fathers and grandfathers hurled for the club, and now their sons.

A yellow card.

‘Ref, for f’ecks sake, what was that for. Are ye blind?’

The game plays on

‘Jasus lads, that was a close one, he should have got a red!’

The whistle blows. Halftime. The game analysed, who played well, who should be taken off. The goalkeeper praised.

‘And did ye see that 65, great talent, he’ll go along way.

A hush descends on the crowd. The team are back on the field to take their position. The crowd watch, one eye of the scoreboard, the other on the game. One team inch ahead only for the opposing team to even the score. The ref checks his watch. One minute left. The score even. We hold our breath muttering ‘We need a goal.’

Thundering heart, heart palpitations. I squeeze my eyes tight, Please God, just one more point, and I’ll go to mass every Sunday, and if it’s a goal I promise I’ll do communion as well.

Cheers. A goal. I hold my breath muttering ‘Christ ref just blow the bloody whistle.’

The Whistle. We clap each other on the back to congratulate each other on a great game.

Shh, the manager speaks. ‘Well done lads, you played out of your skins.’ He chokes up, ‘God you don’t know how proud I am of ye of ye.’ With one hand on his chest he takes a deep breath to compose himself, everyone silent.

‘This time next year,’ he pauses, ‘ lads we’ll win the Under 10’s Championship.’

km85264

The good bits: You capture a good sense of the hurling. The short sentences, simple prose, lines of monologue: it all works to give a sense of the excitement. I knew what was going on throughout. The twist at the end was amusing.

The not so good: This looks for all the world like a first draft, like you threw it down and didn't do any rewrites, didn't read back over it. There's missing punctuation, extra punctuation, mis-capitalised words, repeated words. Even on this humble site, don't post until it's ready. You should read back over it at least ten times, correcting as you go, read it aloud at least once, leave it to sit untouched a few days and then go back to it.

Prognosis: well worth going back and putting a bit of work into it. You might even think of trying to build some hurling action into a longer piece.