First Place:

Free Ride for Life

By Ann Marie Struck

Three months’ hard-earned allowance bought my season ticket to Hersheypark’s fairgrounds.

“Awesome, gurl.” The Gravitron’s drop-dead operator high-fived me. “Never seen a greenhorn not toss their cookies when the floor retracts.” He flipped me a wooden disc, “For luck.”

I caught the token, inscribed, “Free Ride for Life.”

The floor dropped out from under me again.

Cocooned in a recliner, cool chemo trickling into my vein, I fondled the patinaed token, my souvenir of a serendipitous childhood, and closed my eyes to merry-go-round memories—

Your deft fingers, tossing me a lifetime of free rides—now wizened and interlacing mine.

Second Place:

Junior School Trip

By Martin (Moby) Barker

All the children had tickets to the stoning. Verity had a gold one, a reward for scoring top marks

in her ‘Good Citizen’ test. A gold ticket meant a front row seat. She might even get to throw

some rocks. She’d read about people being stoned to death in Jesus’ time when it was just

random and happened in the street. It was so much more civilized now with purpose-built arenas

and proper seating.

The woman was a dissident. She deserved to die. Verity would never go against the

Supreme Leader. He’d made the country great again.

Third Place:

For Luck

By Corrie Haldane

My husband taps his eggs on the counter twice before cracking them on the side of the pan—gently, like knocking before opening a door.

When he’s tired, he rubs his eyes like a toddler, with tightly closed fists.

He keeps the movie ticket from our first date in his wallet. “For luck,” he says. The paper’s grown soft over the years. Thin.

The doctor says there’s a lesion on his prostate. Cancer. He sees a patient. A project. A measurable outcome.

I want him to see the man. 

I want the doctor to hold the ticket, too.

Fourth Place:

One Night in San Remo

By Sonia Haddad

They said the ticket would take us to Aix. But not before dining in our filthy clothes atop a restaurant overlooking San Remo. They felt sorry for us girls hitching. The men wore black suits, cufflinks gleamed. They promised they’d take us to the station. But not before accompanying them to the casino. We crashed on velvet sofas. They said the train left at midnight, dangling the ticket before dropping us. Fat men in vests sat drinking Valpolicella in the porter’s lodge. Il treno? they laughed. No trains until morning. We watched sandflies dancing in shadows from a deserted platform.