What do you love or hate about Secret Attic? Tell us what you think in our poll.

Think you have what it takes?

Want to get some practice?

Just need an excuse to put pen to paper?

Then enter the Secret Attic Short Story Competition!

Each month you can submit an entry that will be passed onto our judges who will pick the best and award a winner. During some months the subject matter will be a 'free for all', where you can write anything you like, other months will have a specific theme.

Previous Competition Winners

February 2005 David Willshaw

April 2005 Christine Sutton

May 2005 George L Darley

July 2005 Robyn O'Hara

August 2005 Richard Adamski

September 2005 Hannah Southgate

October 2005 Heather Parker

December 2005 Feathers by Bob Lakin

January 2006 RD Larson

February 2006 Debra Spiller

March 2006 Nethi Sette

April 2006 Joe Louis

May 2006 Kim Montgomery

Love of Literature by Raymond Hopkins, Kronoby, Finland

Missing by Debra Spiller, Kent, UK

Diary of a Ghost by Suzanne Ralphson, Leicester, UK

Shreds of Love by Irene Edwards, Angus, UK

Lip Service by Will Orr-Ewing, London, UK

Red by Gary Campbell, Mount Gambier, Australia

Leaving The City In Ruins. by Trevor Nicholl, Manchester, UK

One For The Watercooler by Simon Maltz, London, UK

My Own Personal Time Machine by David Darlington, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK

Women and Me and My Mate Jamie by David Darlington, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK

Collecting Footsteps by Annemaria Cooper, Glasgow, UK

The Burning Tree by Daniel Michael Manning, Bath, UK

As Still as Statues by Patrick Johnson, London, UK

Sandy levered the window up with some difficulty, the frame squeaking in protest at this rude awakening. A gust of wind blew into his office, rustling papers and unsettling the dust that had lain for years on the piles of files on every surface.
He looked down on Whitehall, at the cars, the buses, the little people scurrying this way and that. How pointless, he thought, how utterly, utterly pointless. He swung one leg on to the windowsill.
“ Whoa, whoa, whoa!” shouted a hearty female voice. “Deary me! What on earth are you doing?”
The voice came from outside. He looked around but could see no-one. He peered down but none of the pointless little people were taking any notice of this fifth-story civil servant. He shook his head. His imagination! He swung the other leg up.
“ Young man! Stop that at once! I insist!”
“ And answer the question, what are you doing?”
Sandy stopped, perched astride the windowsill. There were two voices now, both powerful and matronly, carrying overtones of soggy cabbage and scabby knees and furtive dorm whisperings after lights-out. Not that Sandy had experienced any of these things in his depressingly mundane comp. Like most things in life he’d lived it through books, through films, through anything other than actually doing it himself.
“ Goodness me, he is a silly boy,”
“ A very silly boy.”
Sandy looked up. On top of the cornice of the building opposite was a coat of arms flanked by a pair of life-sized female statues. He had noticed the statues before, sat dirty and weathered in their voluminous stony robes, staring in grim contemplation at the bustle of Whitehall below.
Only now they weren’t looking down. They were looking at him.
A detached part of Sandy’s mind saw with interest how his grip on reality was loosening now, how he was already leaving the rational world behind. He smiled.
“ Who are you?” demanded the statue on the right. She was frowning severely at Sandy, a look only faintly marred by the long streaks of bird shit lining her face.
Well, thought Sandy, if his brain wanted it this way, then this was the way it was going to be.
“ My name’s Sandy.”
“ Sandy?” said the woman on the left with feeling, “Ugh!”
“ Very modern I’m sure,” sniffed the woman on the right. “Well, Sandy, my name is Miss Phyllida Stephenson and this is my sister, Miss Lucy Stephenson. We aren’t supposed to talk to lifers you know but we can’t let such an abomination go by without some comment, can we Luce?”
“ Oh no,” said Lucy, “to stand by and witness such selfishness, oh no.”
“ Selfishness?” said Sandy.
“ It’s a waste!” cried Phyllida.
“ A terrible waste!” cried Lucy.
“ To throw away one’s mortal life?” said Phyllida. “Well, I’ve seen some pretty off things in my time, but this… this is… despicable!”
“ Inconceivable!”
“ What?” said Sandy.
“ You sir, are a fool!” said Phyllida
“ A fool!” echoed Lucy.
“ To not realise the wonder, the joy, the sheer delight of inhabiting that squishy little body of yours. The man must be an imbecile, dearest sis.”
“ A positive dunderhead, I’d say.”
“ Indeed, I don’t know if a man prone to such idiocy should be encourage to hang on to his no-doubt ridiculous life.”
“ I’m not sure he deserves it!”
“ I don’t know that spreading his innards across the street would be such a heinous course of action for such a man.”
“ It would be a blessing in disguise.”
“ A blessing!”
“ Now hang on a minute,” said Sandy, the part of his brain not used up with wondering at the sheer insanity of it all filled with a righteous annoyance. “Who are you, a couple of, of… statues to make judgements on my life?”
“ Statues!” shrieked Phyllida.
“ Statues!” shrieked Lucy.
“ Lucy,” gasped Phyllida, “you alone are going to have to set this idiot right. I feel an attack of the vapours coming on. Oh, if only Nursey were here!” She ran the back of her hand across her head, her eyes raised to the skies.
“ Now young man,” said Lucy, shaking her head, “No, don’t interrupt. We are not, statues, as you so thoughtlessly put it. We are spirits.”
“ Members of the Afterlife,” added Phyllida.
“ Ethereal beings, sent to this Earth and trapped in these stone bodies through no fault of our own.”
“ None whatsoever.”
“ Through some form of misunderstanding.”
“ A ghastly error.”
“ A terrible mistake. We have cause, quite by accident, an upset, and been banished here.”
“ Exiled, dear sis, exiled.”
“ So,” said Sandy, “you’re trapped in those statues because you’ve annoyed someone in Heaven?”
The sisters burst out in bitter laughter.
“ Heaven?” scoffed Phyllida, “They wouldn’t let the likes of us into Heaven, would they dearest.”
“ Goodness me no.”
“ So Hell then?” said Sandy.
“ Young man,” said Lucy, “will you please not ask such foolish questions. We have told you who we are, and why we are here, cursed for all eternity to watch the streets below in silence.”
“ It’s not eternity sweeting” said Phyllida. “Just a long time.”
“ Well it feels like eternity, especially on weekends.”
“ And you’re not doing very well on the silence front either,” said Sandy.
“ Now look, don’t you bloody start.”
“ Lucy! Language!”
“ I’m sorry dear sis, but this young man is beginning to trouble my nerves. And he’s not even deigned to explain to us poor souls why he is about to fling himself from that window.”
“ Very true, sis, very true.” Phyllida turned to Sandy and fixed him with a stony glare. “Well young man, explain yourself.”
Sandy thought of his empty flat and his dead-end job and his unfriendly friends and his years of singledom and loneliness and mounting debts and distant family and his flabby body and stupid face and honking voice and the way he simply wanted his existence to halt.
He tried explaining this to the sisters. It wasn’t easy.
“ Is that it?” said Phyllida, when he’d finished.
“ My, my,” said Lucy. “Men have changed since our day Phyll.”
“ I think he needs to be set straight on a few things.”
“ He needs to hear some home truths.”
And so, in return, the sisters told him about the myriad universes of existence and the afterlife of infinite souls and the long, slow passage of eternity and the terrible boredom that afflicted those without physical form and the rampant longing by all who’d passed on to return, even for a day, to touch and taste and smell and feel once again.
“ That’s amazing!” said Sandy, when they’d finished.
“ It does rather boggle the mind,” admitted Phyllida.
“ No,” said Sandy, eyes blazing. “I feel amazing.”
“ I beg your pardon?” said Lucy.
“ Can’t you see. I’m free! For the first time in my life I’m free!”
“ Oh my,” said Phyllida.
“ Nothing matters any more. Nothing matters!” Sandy untangled himself from the window frame and rushed into the office.
“ What have we done?” said Lucy.
“ I think we’ve made a boo-boo,” said Phyllida.
“ We must keep quiet about this,” said Lucy.
“ We won’t tell anyone, will we.”
“ What if he tells?”
“ No-one will listen to him. He’s as nutty as a fruitcake!”
“ As batty as a belfry!”
“ As loony as a Fenchman!”
“ As crazy as a Prussian!”
“ Oh, look out. What is he up to now?”
Sandy returned, staggering under the weight of a gigantic pile of files. With a primal scream of joy he flung them out of the window. They tumbled down, shedding leaves like confetti, before landing with a thud next to a group of Italian tourists.
“ Sandy, dear...” started Phyllida.
“ Can’t stop now,” yelled Sandy, “work to be done.”
Before long the crowd gathered below was spreading out into the road, halting the traffic and causing drivers to crane their necks upwards to see what was happening. As the next stack of files flew out of the window a hundred cameras and mobile phones captured images of the crazy englishman to take home to friends and family the world over.
By the time Sandy had finished the sound of sirens could be heard converging from all directions. He leaned on the window sill and looked at the sisters.
“ There,” he breathed, panting with exhaustion, “ what do you think of that?”
“ Very nice dear,” said Phyllida.
“ We’re very… proud,” said Lucy.
“ Maybe it’s time you went,” said Phyllida, “before the law arrives.”
“ Yes,” said Lucy, “before you’re clapped in irons.”
“ Yes, yes. I should go. I have new feats to perform! New mountains to conquer!” Sandy gave the sisters a big bug-eyed grin. “You know all of this,” his gesture took in the pile of papers, the crowd of tourists and the chaos spreading down Whitehall, “This is all down to you.”
“ I know,” said Phyllida.
“ Oh dear,” said Lucy.
“ How can I ever thank you,” said Sandy.
“ You could go,” said Phyllida.
“ Now,” said Lucy.
“ Ah farewell and adieu my ladies,” sang Sandy, skipping away from the window. “farewell and adieu.”
And later, the sisters watched Sandy wade through the pile of papers he’d created, his arms raised above his head, his fists clenched in triumph. They watched the crowd shy away from him, scared now at the proximity of the crazy Englishmen. And they watched as the police eventually dragged him away and slung him in the back of their van.
“ We weren’t to know that was going to happen,” said Phyllida quietly.
“ Couldn’t possibly predict,” said Lucy.
“ From now on, dearest sis, we shall keep our mouths shut.”
“ Yes darling, from now on as silent as the grave.”
“ And as still as statues”
“ As still as statues.”