Surround Sound
In ‘River’s Thousand-One Voice’ by Cadence Mandybura, a child seeks comfort and escape in the sounds and strength of a powerful river.
First runner-up for the 2020 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize, ‘River’s Thousand-One Voice’ shares the podium with Cadence’s winning entry, ‘The Weeping Pools’!
To listen in as Cadence reads ‘River’s Thousand-One Voice’ in its entirety, check out our January launch of Issue 29!
For now, enjoy this excerpt from Issue 29, Winter 2021. And read on for news of the next Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize, opening 1 May!
River’s Thousand-One Voice
by Cadence Mandybura
River is cold and chatters all day in her thousand-one voice. Big sister says that’s not how you count, but I ask her how you say it when something is a thousand things and one thing at once, like River, and big sister has no answer.
I spend a lot of time with River. You can make little whirlpools if you poke her in the right way, but I’m always more interested in her sounds than her shapes. She makes a medium glug-a-lug if you hold a branch underwater and let her bend around it, and a small fipp if you strike the surface instead.
Get a big rock and huck it — kersploosh! Everyone knows that one. Get a flat stone, pick your angle, wing it across the water’s surface, and watch the rock hop. Pad-pad-pad-pad-plop, light as a cat’s step until the river gulps the stone whole. Most people know that one, too.
Long after most kids get bored and run off to play their ball games, I keep testing out new sounds.
To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Issue 29, Winter 2021!
Cadence Mandybura’s fiction has been published in FreeFall, NōD, Fudoki Magazine, and the Bacopa Literary Review. When she isn’t writing, Cadence practises martial arts and plays Japanese taiko drums. Learn more at cadencemandybura.com.
Opening 1 May:
The 2021 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize!
With a top prize of $300 and publication in Pulp Literature Issue 33, Winter 2022, the Hummingbird Prize really soars!
This contest is for previously unpublished short fiction up to 1000 words in length. Multiple entries welcome!
So send us your flashiest flash, your small but mighty prose, your sweet or scrappy stories. And if you enter by 15 May, you pay the early-bird fee of just $15!
For more details and to enter, visit the contest page.
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