The shortlisted stories in this year's Richard Harrington Literature Challenge Cup

I love Watford; especially here, tucked in-between the Town Hall and Library, with its picture post-card view of the pond and on down through Town.

I miss the fish away on holiday at present; they’re always such good companions telling such tall tales. Their memories of tickling the cooling fetlocks of deeply drinking horses, morph in a fountain splash to racing with squirrels and terrapins. They’ve flirted with model submarines and battleships promoting war weapons week, watched schoolboys slipping and sliding in the deep frost and on Cup-final day nipped a paddling Hornets fan or two whilst they continually chanted that dreadful “In the Pond”. Draping a Watford scarf around my neck was joining in the fun, but having to hold a borrowed umbrella from the Horns beer-garden was so unbecoming.

All this recent rain has played havoc with my arthritic joints. Never known such a deluge, places flooding that I never dreamt would. At least in the old days the hay carts plodded straight through the ford; not like modern motor-cars, all electronic splutter and conking out.

The overflowing River Colne certainly bought the Town to a standstill; not that unusual these days. With more roads planned and not forgetting the new health campus, just how the Town still grows. Re-development took my abode in the seventies but relocation isn’t that bad; just ask all our wartime evacuees. There is a true sadness though in losing trusted friends, Cassiobury House, The Elms, the old bandstand and park gates all fade to grey, even the gasometer passed on last Christmas. Who to quaff halves of Sedgwick’s with now?

I remember the excitement of Royalty coming to town to open the Peace Memorial Hospital. Handbills promoted the visit, drawing visitors from far a field on the railway. That’s the Watford way, always welcoming, we’re a family Town. Elton and twisted statistics have it wrong; Saturday night’s not alright for fighting.

I enjoy watching the planes fly over; a bi-plane took my picture once, as college students still do. I’ve sneaked a peak at that image on a computer screen through the library windows.

I adore all the comings and goings; concert goers, children on their weekly visit to the baths, and last Sunday the annual interfaith pilgrimage wandered past. Watford’s so multicultural these days; how wonderful to see residents united, sharing culture and faith. I told you Watford’s like that, even had the town’s fire-engine leading the way, Alderman Thorpe would be so proud.

It’s what it all boils down to, roll with the changes and friendships endure. I know, being Victory, cast in bronze and stood on my verdigris stained Portland plinth, I am more than a poppy be-decked war memorial. Here with the fallen; and the maimed, blind and groping wounded, my constant companions; I stand resolute to resolve conflict, prevent violence and promote reconciliation.

I am the Peace Memorial: PEACE SHALOM SALAAM

• Brian Bold - Many Happy Returns of the Day (Joint second place)

"You are seven today, young man," mummy smiles . "You can play outside with Gerald but don't go near the bombed houses." I clap my hands with joy. Gerald's my best friend.

I think I'm having a big party. Everyone is getting ready for it.

"Happy Birthday, Ben," they chorus as they line up party tables along the middle of our street. All my friends must all be coming. Mr Green looks funny. He's wearing a top hat as he climbs a ladder to tie a string of flags between telegraph poles. Union Jacks are fluttering from every house.

Mummy has baked lots of cakes and she's let me scrape the mixing bowl. She's made my favourite raspberry jelly too.

"My mum's making funny hats," Gerald shouts, as he hops across paving stones. "Pointed wizard ones from rolled up cardboard flags, round ones from the silver stuff mum puts in the oven and coloured paper ones."

He wants a blue hat, I want a red and white one. Arsenal colours.

Some big boys with bikes interrupt our hopscotch. One of them asks if we want a victory ride round the block. But I don't know what he means and I mustn't miss my party.

I want a bike. I hope that's my present. My other friend, Richard got one when he was six. He has a dad. I can't remember mine but I think Mr Green smells like him. Mummy says that's because he used the same tobacco.

She's turned our wireless up loud so we can hear it in the street. Everyone starts to dance, holding hands and singing . "There'll be bluebirds over, The white cliffs of Dover, Tomorrow, Just you wait and see."

Mrs Green sweeps me up and swings me round. I can't stop screaming. She cuddles me as she puts me down.

"You are going to have a lovely surprise." She says, kissing me on the cheek.

Mummy's at our door. She wants me to come and get changed. I wonder when she will give me my bike. She lets me wear my new sandals and football kit.

The party's starting now. Someone is playing on a piano.

Gerald says, " It's the National Anthem and we must stand still."

A nice lady piles my plate with cakes, sandwiches and an orange. All us children have a square of chocolate. Mummy says everyone is getting a present.

"I can't see any," I say.

"Our present is peace," she says. "You can't see it but we have waited years for it."

I can't stop myself crying.

"I want a bike," I scream but no hears me. Everyone is clapping and cheering as soldiers come down the street. Mummy runs to one and jumps into his arms. Together they come to me. Mummy is crying.

The soldier hugs me. "You'll have a bike soon son, I promise," he says.

• Kimberley Simcox - Sunrise (fourth place)

Sam walked into the dark park, the stars shining above him, the moon lighting his way between the trees, the tall sentinels lining his route. They alone stood watch to his pre-dawn walk.

He rarely slept anymore.

The screams, the gunfire, the chaos – all haunted his dreams. He found it difficult to find peace in his unconscious moments.

But here, in this dark park, was where he could find peace.

He found himself here every morning, leaving his wife dreaming peacefully, dreams unfettered by horror, or at least he hoped. His feet knew where to go, cutting across the dew-ridden grass to a bench over-looking the stream that wound its way through the park.

Sam could not help but compare the winding route of the river through the park to the trenches on the front line.

That was how it looked, in the dark.

But then, everything brought him back to the trenches.

Last night, his wife Kate dropped a fork as she was washing up, the simplest of actions, but it had taken her ten minutes to coax him out from underneath the table where he’d taken refuge, hands clasped over his head.

She had asked him what was wrong, her fear and concern battling for dominance in her wide blue eyes. When he couldn’t explain, she’d insisted on calling the doctor but he’d convinced her not to.

How could the doctor understand? He hadn’t been there, Kate hadn’t been there - they hadn’t seen the things Sam had seen.

How could they understand if they hadn’t seen what happened?

The sun was starting to rise, the horizon was starting to look lighter. Sam could feel his tension, his anxiety easing.

He could feel the calm settling over him, watching the sun rise, slowly easing him into the day ahead. The stream in front of him was turning pink, orange, reflecting the rising sun, his rising peace.

He wished for the thousandth time that this feeling of calm, this sense of peace would last all day, all week, that he could feel this way for the rest of his life - that the horrors would fade, that the look of pain on his fellow soldier’s faces would disappear from his memory.

Sometimes that’s all he could see when he closed his eyes. The flash followed by the boom, the subsequent flashes lighting the look of shock, pain and peace on Gerald’s face, Gerald who’d signed up next to him, always laughing, a cigarette ever present in his smiling mouth.

It had been unlit when he died, just one more piece of unfinished business.

Of all his happy memories of Gerald, the only one Sam could picture was of his frozen face and peaceful eyes, his unlit cigarette dangling, the ghost of his final smile on his mouth.

But here, in this park, at sunrise, he could forget the horror, the pain, the loss and remember life, remember peace.

He could remember all that he’d fought for, all that they’d died for.

• Jackie Green - Brothers in Arms

As a child I yearned for a room of my own, a space my five older brothers could not invade.

I dreamed of a kingdom of silk whispers, an eiderdown of puffy mountains that flowed to the floor. Not the thin blanket I gripped every night, not the battle I lost to sharp elbows and knees and not the rusty bed frame that clawed my skin.

My whimpers earned me a rough arm of warmth as Jimmy pushed grubby legs aside to pull me under the cover. He was my hero and his words could transform the damp room into a mystical world of dragons and brave knights. The dragons he eventually faced were far from magical.

Bert was the joker who tied my hair to the bed. I’ll never forget the horror in his eyes when I howled with despair. He gave up his place for me and slept on the floor for a week. I imagined his laughter echoing above the battlefields through the years.

The twins Stan and Johnny fought everyone, all the time. It was them against the world and they always won. Till later of course. That left Peter, the youngest, who always gave me his porridge, even when it had sugar on it. He was soft was Peter. Not any more.

I pull my nightgown sleeve over my fist and polished the glass. I don’t know who took this blurry photo of my brothers, playing outside the dark tenement in the rain, but I thank god for it. I replace the gilt frame on the table next to my bed and brush the dust away. Yanking my grey hair to one side, I plait the thin strands and stretch the band around the end. It’s a struggle to drag myself up but I would not trade in this old iron bedstead for one of those new divan contraptions.

I drag the thick quilt up to my chin. Despite the warmth I feel the chill of an empty bed. I wonder if the boys snuggled together in the freezing mud, if they leapt across trenches of broken men, if they heard individual screams or just one.

Now I am old, I have space but no peace, no husband and no children to fill my heart. My brothers gather around me now, handsome and whole. I peer closer but they fade leaving a silent void, a row of medals and a wealth of memories that warm my heart.

• Dominic Kenna All in a Deus Work

God curled up in his perfect bed and slept a perfect sleep. In a world where all things happen, dust settled by his feet. Perfect feet on perfect dust, a perfect crush was had. And in the morning woken, by the results of a little big bang.

"Oh Lord, who art in heaven..."

Came some of the more rhetorical prayers.

"Please buy me a Mercedes benz...."

Came some of the more demanding.

"Oh God, please no..."

Were some of the more disturbing.

God sat and hmmmed a while.

"Hmmm..." said God, to no one but His self. "Hmmmm...." he said again. "A fascinating mistake. " Labeled and put it on a shelf.

As days went by and months did pass, the little universe expanded fast. Idle hands and infinity, God returned, with a thought "let's just see. "

"Let's start small," said God, to His self, omnipotent, without ambition, and he chose a man and he burnt a bush. He tittered to Himself later about this.

And time went by.

God returned and He viewed His creation. He'd spent some time away, but the prayers grew louder once more, leaving Him quite unable to think. Right, He thought, you'll get some wrath. He wrathed a while, then went to snack.

Time went on and on and on. As is it's want.

Fear of God drove fever and fervour, and whilst away, the cries grew louder. And so returned, He scratched His chin, His thinking face.

"If it's not the stick, then it's the carrot, I suppose. " God frowned, for He'd enjoyed His wrath. "P'raps if I showed them how to be peaceful, they might learn, for my sake. "

And so He decided to let them learn, impregnated a lady (that was just fun). The child would grow and then world lasting peace. Well, that was the plan.

Time fluttered, and juttered, then chundered along.

He left it a dot, but thirty years. "Peace should be mine" he returned to confirm. "Foiled once more. " He soon came to curse, took His own name vainly, felt bile come to course.

And they prayed once more.

"God forgive me. "

This struck a chord.

Time looped and it swooped and ran on its course.

All-knowing and powerful, are not all thought and action. Never a being who was sole without self. God, amused by his folly, retained for good joy. His infinite shelf bristled, filling yet never full. He wandered down further and found the key to acceptance. Perfect earmuffs, for perfect ears, for perfect peace.

Time swam on and returned, all at all pace.

• Steve Prizeman - Garden

The garden was beautiful, still, an island of peace. A thousand shades of green vied with each other – leaves, grass, trees, hedges, stems, weeds, moss, ferns – as the foliage swelled and burgeoned in the summer sun, so welcome after the winter rain.

Other colours, too, blossomed in the garden: bright yellow marigolds, ice-blue cornflowers, snow-white daisies, mauve buddleia, the magenta bells of foxgloves grown shoulder high, magnolia petals with the soft orange blush of sunset upon them. Sometimes the colours took to the air: butterflies dancing erratic fractal patterns; glinting, metallic damselflies hatched from the stagnant water butt; red enamelled ladybirds speckling the warm terracotta brickwork of what was left of the house.

Above, the swifts, newly returned, found everything much as they had left it – quieter, perhaps, and flies and roosts in abundance: and that was what mattered. The pigeons, too, though they had never left, lived much as before – surveying the world from the high places of the leylandii. If it weren’t for the cats, whose attentions drove them to roost ever higher, everything would have seemed unchanged.

The grass had long since de-lawned itself, grown lank, folding over under its own weight. It was a jungle now, perfect cover for the cats – increasingly feral, thin-ribbed, tattered-eared and milky-eyed – that stalked its coverts to prey upon bird and mouse. Hidden deep within those thickets of grass, even they could no longer see the spent cartridges and shell casings, rusting quietly – although sometimes they encountered still the bones. Bleached by the sun and unburied, they were being woven into the fabric of the garden, meshed to the soil by countless stalks and tendrils – daisies and nettles and halo-headed dandelions. Even now, the cats paused occasionally to sniff them and delve their memories for faint recollections of what they once were.

But the cats, though – of necessity – they were harder and bolder than before, were also scared. Scared that the dogs, ganged together into ever more desperate packs, would break through the scorched panels of the fence, or dig out the foxes’ half-hidden entry points and squeeze below, as they did. Or that in their occasional, clamouring frenzy outside the roofless shell of the house they might jump through the windows, defying the shards of glass that clung on in rotten frames like blackened teeth in scurvy gums. What then, but to retreat to the upper storey? Climbing, as dogs cannot, the stairless void, to live among the ash and the fallen tiles and rain-logged insulation.

But that was another day, one that had not yet come and for which they could not plan – as they had not planned for this. Today they shared the garden with the rats and the foxes, the crows and magpies. And, still, to all appearances, the garden was peaceful.

• John Ramsey - The Importance of Exactitude

The man cut the sandwich into four precise triangles and placed them in the lunch box. Next to them he lay a Kit Kat. Always a Kit Kat. And always four fingers, not two. For twelve years he had made the same lunch. That was five thousand, seven hundred and sixty slices of white bread. Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty slices of ham. Eleven thousand, five hundred and twenty individual fingers of Kit Kat.

The clock clicked over to 8:26. He adjusted his tie so that it sat exactly on his top button, and left the house. It was five steps from the front door to the gate. He opened the gate and walked through, ensuring it shut firmly behind him. It was futile to hope it would stay closed for long, though. He wasn’t expecting any post today but nothing could stop those pizza menus intruding through the letter-box. The thought of the gate being left half-open for much of the day was disturbing. Unfortunately it was a thirty-four minute walk to the office. If he came back during his lunch hour to check it, he would be eight minutes late on his return. Unacceptable. He needed an alternative solution.

Too many people saw life as an impenetrable maze of chaos, emotion and indecision. It wasn’t. It was a construct of interlocking puzzles. Each individual one simple to solve. It just required focus and application to untangle them. From structure came order. And from order came contentment.

He was a very content man.

He returned home nine hours and eight minutes later. When he opened the door, his wife was already back from work, a cup of tea waiting for him. He sipped it. Teabag steeped for eighty seconds; one level teaspoon of white, granulated sugar; no milk.

Structure. Order. Contentment.

His wife smiled at him.

"I'm pregnant."

• Sue Pettit - Waiting

As soon as she gets in Sheila runs up to Billy’s room. It’s empty.

Downstairs she checks the answer phone. Will there be a message? Nothing.

The house is a mess but she doesn’t have the heart clean it. She had always been houseproud, especially after Billy was born. She had wanted him to bring his friends, noisy boys who had eaten everything.

It has all stopped now. Billy brings no one home. He hardly comes home himself. Sheila picks up a photograph, a smiling Billy of fourteen, taken two years ago. Why has it all changed? She’ll have to make excuses for him to Ian, again.

Billy doesn’t come home.

That night, as usual, Sheila lies in bed, tense with anxiety, alert to every night sound.

“Come home, Billy. Please don’t be in any trouble.” She mutters the plea like a mantra.

Ian stirs.

“Is he back yet?” “No.”

“What time is it?”

Sheila knows. She’s been checking the clock.

“Half past three.”

“What the hell is he doing?” Ian is awake now.

“He may have gone home with Ryan or be staying at Mark’s.”

“Rubbish! Those lads will have been tucked up in bed hours ago, not entertaining our worthless son.”

Ian doesn’t really mean it. He is angry and worried. She’s too worried for anger. How has her adorable boy turned into this unreliable, dishonest and, yes, stupid adolescent? She’s been asking this question since Billy went off the rails but has no answer. Hormones? Drugs? The wrong company? Had she spoilt him? Probably. But she loves him so much. She always will.

Through the open window comes a single, sweet birdsong, the beginning of the dawn chorus. It emphasises that Billy has spent another night out, doing what? Another sound penetrates the dawn, which makes her rigid with fear. She can hear the wail of a police car, or maybe an ambulance. Is it coming closer? Not Billy” Please not Billy! The noise fades.

She touches Ian. If he’s asleep she could creep out to Billy’s room, just in case he is home.

Billy can’t be home without her knowing. His door is shut. She opens it, holding her breath until it’s ajar. The dawn light reveals an empty bed. Sheila crumples, sinking to the floor in tears of despair. What can they do?

In her despair she doesn’t hear the key in the lock, the click of the door and the tread on the stair. Billy almost falls over her as she crouches in the doorway.

“Whet yer doing? What’s up?” he growls.

“Oh Billy, you’re back.” She wants to hug him but daren’t.

Billy says nothing but throws himself onto his unmade bed and turns his back.

Sheila creeps back to bed. She will have a few hours of precious peace now. Where has he been? What has he done? At this moment all she cares about is that he’s home, in bed, safe. She can sleep in peace.

• Trevor Spinage - To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

It was just a routine test. There was no cause for concern. Then the tiny doubt banished to the back of our minds became reality and shattered our world.

What can be done? Nothing. The disease has trespassed too far. There is no miracle cure, no wonder drug. Only a slow decline into agony as the malignant malady devours the body and poisons the mind. How long? Possibly months. Perhaps only weeks.

A man condemned to die for the foulest of crimes might curse the confines of his tiny cell but he knows to the very second when his life will be forfeit and his misery will end. What if the walls of the cell are your own broken body and you know not when the executioner will knock upon the door? That is a torture no mortal mind could devise.

We'll carry on as usual, ignore the prophecy. But each day you become weaker. As I hold you close I feel the frail beat of your heart as it counts down another second.

And the days grow ever longer and the nights ever longer still.

We only converse in lies. I say how well you look, there's colour in your cheeks. You say you feel much stronger, you may get up today - or perhaps tomorrow. But time has no meaning anymore. We are in limbo. The present is forever. There is no today for if there is today there must be tomorrow and if there is tomorrow there must be a future but we have only memories of the past. Memories filled with regrets of what we didn't do, will never do, can never do.

And the days grow even longer and the nights even longer still.

Why when I have shared your joy and your sorrow, your love and your life, why can I not share even the smallest part of your pain? Why can I only watch and wait, powerless to relieve your suffering? Forced to wait for that final moment when the agony of the body overcomes the reluctance of the soul.

A last kiss. The hint of a smile upon your lips, a look of grateful thanks in your eyes before they close forever.

Peace.

Your wasted body lies like a chrysalis' broken shell. What will the butterfly find in the undiscovered country, the land of no return? Endless sleep? Eternal dreams?

I reach for the telephone.

Police? I have just murdered my wife.

• Read the winning entry, The New Captain, by Helen Nicell here.