2025 PARANORMAL FLASH FICTION CHALLENGE RUNNER-UP

and the runner-up place goes to…

Janet Bowstead

RETROSPECTIVELY

Bit by bit we resigned ourselves to the changed skyline. We barely noticed any more. Sometimes it seemed only a couple of months ago that we could see to the edge of the woods, and then – gone.

From the footbridge we used to point out the view to the river, to the station. And then – gone.

And the town became colder. Wind whistled through the narrow gaps, and shadows chilled the streets where the sun never reached.

A few years ago we’d make submissions to the Planning Committee, we’d try to persuade the Councillors to question the developers, we’d draw up alternative plans and quote specific schedules of approved documents. We’d tried to argue that it was out of keeping with the local area.

But we always lost.

So the tower blocks sprung up like Japanese Knotweed, cracking through the familiar skyline and blocking the familiar views.

Sometimes the developers went bust, and the skeletons of ‘prestige residential units’ squatted sulkily, waiting for the next deal.

What would it take to make them disappear?

Surely a nightmare fire and cruel deaths would shake consciences to cry – pause, pause, pause...

Surely a tower block needs more than one staircase for escape in case of fire.

But it was only in our dreams that the green spaces and terraced streets returned. And yet, and yet - somehow those dreams got us trying again.

Not the Planning Committee any more – we’re not such fools. We practised hexes, stirred mixes and potions with the dust from the building sites. We cast our spells. 

We even read the “UK Government Response to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 2 Report (CP 1248)” and “The Building Regulations 2010: Amendments to Approved Document B” and we saw our chance.

Our potions were getting stronger – we saw some effects: a Planning Application refused on the grounds of height, a community garden saved, the acknowledgement of a protected view.  But new plans came thick and fast, and we struggled to keep up.

We decided to concentrate all our efforts into a hex on “Approved Document B: Fire safety Volume 1 – Dwellings”. To make it retrospective. Not giving the developers until September 2026 until they have to do anything – and even then another eighteen months if they can prove they have already started to build. And nothing – nothing – about staircases in existing tower blocks.

There is so much that could be better, could be different, but we had to prioritise. Hocus Pocus. Focus, focus, focus...

And so, today – 30th September 2026 – the proof of the pudding…

We spread out around the town, a couple of us by each of the towers over 18 metres. Watching, watching, watching.

Was that a crack, a creak? The fear that we had done something terrible – disaster after disaster; public inquiry after public inquiry.

But then it was a shimmering, not a shaking; a settling, not a falling; and a flowing stream as the towers gently spread out into neat rows of houses, maisonettes, and small blocks of flats.

The tower blocks had vanished.

Specifically – according to “The Building Regulations 2010: Amendments to Approved Document B: Fire safety Volume 1 – Dwellings” – the blocks of flats over 18 metres with only one common stair had gone. 

Retrospectively.

Assigned Phenomenon: Vanishing Town
This story was written as part of our recent paranormal-themed contest, in which each participant was assigned a different paranormal phenomenon.