"Dream of California" by Finnian Burnett—Our March 2022 Gold Medal Winner

Finnian Burnett is our first place winner from the contest posted in our March 2022 issue and their story will be published in the March 2022 edition. Congratulations, Finnian!

What the judges had to say:

“Although short, this story manages to tell a full, complex and endearing story. I enjoyed how details were dolled out slowly and it felt like the writer was in control the whole time.”

“I loved the premise for the story, the dialogue ... and the vividness of the characters. It was easy to picture them and share their dream.”

“Old becomes new, forgotten is remembered, and past turns to future in this take on the image prompt. This author took us on a ride, expertly using the image prompt to both pull us into the scene and deliver us elsewhere. Goosebumps were provoked!”

Meet Finnian

Finnian Burnett teaches undergrad English and creative writing. They’ve published in the Bath Flash Fiction Award Anthology, Daily Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, and more.

In their spare time, Finnian watches a lot of Star Trek and takes their cat for walks in a stroller. Finnian lives in British Columbia with their wife and Lord Gordo, the cat. You can find Finnian on Twitter at @FinnianBurnett and at www.finnburnett.com.

Dream of California

an excerpt of Finnian’s winning story

Mel’s feet hang out the side window, flip flops dangling precariously over the drop. The van is parked at an angle, her side slightly higher, so she lounges against the side of my seat but I’m fighting gravity in the driver’s seat. Mel is effortlessly sprawled, a partially crushed cigarette between her fingers.

Her dad smoked Camels, his muscled forearm hanging out the window with a cigarette in his grip. Our moms sat in the bench seat in front of us, leaning forward to talk to our dads who took turns driving.

My fingers play around the steering wheel, fumbling at the cracks in the faux-leather cover. “Pretend you’re driving,” Mel says, fake smoking the unlit cigarette she’d found between the front seats. “Pretend we’re getting out of here.”

“Do you have to smoke in the car?” Mel’s mom said when a whiff of smoke drifted back to us. Mel slept on the seat next to me, wrapped in a sleeping bag, her dark curls sticking out from her head.

The van is in the field behind our houses, abandoned by Mel’s dad next to a dilapidated shed he and my father built back when they were here, when Mel’s mom was still healthy, when we used to get together for BBQs and our moms would argue about whether to put mustard in the potato salad.

I’m too old to make fake engine noises, to rumble deep in my throat the way I did when I used to ride my bike in circles pretending that I was a long-haul trucker like my dad, that I was cool like Mel’s dad who drove a muscle car when he wasn’t driving the van.

Cool, my mom used to call him when we were all still friends. “Trashy,” she said when he took off in his hot rod shortly after Mel’s mom got sick.

…

to read the rest of the story, order your copy of the June 2022 issue.