[The Judge]

Just shows how pedestrian my mind is, I thought Talysia's was about a baby chick...

No, Teresa, I didn't realise she was a mermaid either. Perhaps if the last lines had an idea of returning or coming home? I thought she'd died (her heart turning to stone) and she welcomed death when she realised her husband hadn't come to save her. Strange, isn't it, how we can interpret something so short in so many ways. Incidentally, I'm astonished again at how rich your piece feels.

While we're (again) confessing things we didn't understand, who was the tempter in the piece you did submit? The way he'd tempted her before, but it was a sin, made me think it was the devil -- and she was also a witch on trial for her life -- but I couldn't be sure.

As for my mirror effort, I was half thinking of keeping it in case I could shoe horn it into another contest, but that's probably unlikely to happen so:

Mirror Image

A land behind the mirror. Images of green and gold in a room of dark and pain. She stretched fingers to the image, pushing through a barrier of light. Hand, heart followed. Warmth, love beckoned. Hope rose.

A final look at the grey room, at the cold life. She walked forward to the land of hope, of promise.

Slowly, green became grey, gold became pain.

She turned. Trapped.

The mirror smiled.


(Just in case anyone is interested, it's a woman leaving her husband for another man.)


Nearly forgot, congratulations to Sephiroth. Very much deserved -- and I stand by the Keatsian feel to the poem -- and commiserations to Mouse.