Robin - Scottish Mountaineering Press

Lauren Kedar 26 January 2025

Winner of the 2024 Creatives Flash Fiction Contest, kindly supported by Fort William Mountain Festival and the Highland Bookshop.

Her wingtips brush my cheeks. They’re soft, softer than I thought they’d be, and I stop dead. She’s looking at me with one of her little brown eyes, watching from a silver branch as the frost flutters down below her.

She’s cold. I know it because I am too. When the world seems too big, what else can you do but head up and up and up until the snow steals the feeling from your toes and your lungs start to crackle? I rummage in my bag. Pull out a biscuit. I’ve barely had time to crumble it when she jumps into my hand and snaps it up, weightless and delicate, and I wonder for the first time if maybe, like her, I can make it through the winter.

She flutters back to her branch, puffs out her chest, and sings me a little song of joy.

Lead image by Rob Lovell

Creator’s biography

Lauren works as a summer and winter mountain leader and spends a lot of time writing by torchlight with very cold fingers. When she’s not working and not writing she is usually stuck to a rock face somewhere. She also has a PhD in geology, so it’s best not to ask her about rocks unless you’ve got at least an hour to spare.

At the moment, Lauren is particularly into writing crime novels, and the Creatives flash contest is the first time she’s played with shorter pieces. She might do it some more.