WINNER FOR IGNIS
A TOWN CALLED TRINITY
Katie Pharoah, aged 17
Trinity was a small town located technically in the
middle of nowhere. The word ‘technically’ was
used because it was nearly an hour away from a
proper town and surrounded by either lakes or
forests. That was what Trinity was known for; its
peaceful outskirts. Contrasting to that was the fact
that Trinity was the battle ground of two major
corporations; Archer Enterprises and Andrews
Incorporated. The corresponding families and
businesses battled on machinery, urbanising the
centre of Trinity while maintaining the peaceful
atmosphere tourists loved.
The Andrews tower stood like a glass python,
twisting in ways which shouldn’t have been
architecturally possible, but it stood nevertheless.
The Archer building was a monolithic spire,
a needle pointed up to the heavens with the
smallest rooms at the top being the rooms that
housed the biggest decisions. It was said that the
python and the needle battled daily although the
buildings never moved.
The forests were where children played when
they were young, excited by all the nooks and
crannies they could explore. They followed the
sun like tired kittens and when the sun fi nally
disappeared they retreated back to the haven
of the buildings, to their parents and to their
beds. The forests were also known for their ghost
stories. Elder brothers would tell their siblings
about the little boy who still ran through the trees,
searching for his Frisbee even in death. That
fable told how the little boy got lost and wandered
into the path of a hunter’s axe. The fable fi nished
in how even when the snow rained down on the
forest, painting everything white with crystals, it
was still stained scarlet near the hunters house
where the boy was robbed of his life.
The lakes remained peaceful, like they always
had since the 1950s, until the fog descended,
robbing a certain someone of their sensibilities
and making a murderer out of their humanity.
Rebecca Long was found fl oating in Serenity
Lake and there were purple tattoos of handprints
on her neck, a necklace of violence.
The coroner told her family she had been dead
for fi ve days before they found her, a fl oating
angel in white lace fallen from life’s highest
point; happiness. Some even said that it took fi fty
seconds for her to die, too quick, too brutal. Ten
lots of fi ve seconds. That was all it took.
From that exact moment Trinity’s fabled peace
crumbled like a car crash in slow motion. There
was nothing to stop it from happening, from
causing a spectacle, a soul-destroying spectacle.
But like most towns, the fog lifted, humanity was
made from murderers. There was another side of
the blade, the one that didn’t stab and wound but
the one that hurt yet healed.
Now the small town of Trinity waited for the fog
to come for them again, like it always did. The
town of Trinity was like all the other towns and
cities, sitting and waiting and hiding behind its
fabled peace since the 1950s.
HANNAH SAID
A Town called Trinity’ has a dark tone,
perfect for Halloween. The story focuses
on time and is well written. The theme
of fift y is subtler but just as eff ective.
IGNIS
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