MINI SAGA
COMPETITION
2011
Mini-Sagas
A mini-saga is a story of exactly fifty words,
No more, no less.
I should tell a complete story
With a beginning, a middle and an end.
It should make a point,
Have some drama or some political truth in it.
It must, in fact, be a saga in miniature.
Macher Pumprey
Priorities
Intently I crafted my fifty words.
I carried them with me as I would a ball of plasticine
in my pocket,
Shaping and squeezing them.
Distracted, I ignored you when you called me.
Later I brought them proudly to you, finished.
You‘d left a note:
‘hree words would have done.
Christopher Read
The finalists …
Ghost of wind
Wanna be with you,
Surrounding you, holding
you.
I drift next to your ear –
telling you my only desire.
But this is just another
thought of you to discard.
Swaying through this world
my soul is enchanted by
you.
Nobody hears my weeping,
nobody will understand my
pain, suffering alone.
Lina Bantawa Rai
Watching her
I saw a woman covered with wrinkles.
For her, there was nothing worth living for, no
memory, no dream.
Some kids were playing behind her.
Kids who had possibilities she never had.
Suddenly a ball flew towards her, released her.
Everything she left me was loneliness and a broken
mirror.
Subanki Raveendranathan
All day long she is eating. She is doing
nothing else than eating. Whenever you
meet her, you can be sure she’s eating.
A few weeks later she is about about three
metres tall and two metres big. And she
won’t stop eating.
‘Look, Mummy. That’s a really big plant!’
Denise Lukassen
Angel
She was walking into the brightness. Pictures
of a girl growing older hung to her side.
As the girl turned into a woman, she began
to run.
Soon after, the light was so bright she closed
her eyes.
Opening them she saw the girl’s daughter
crying for her mom.
Diana Baumgärtel
The Sugar Doll
‘You are my Sugar Doll‘, said the gentleman to his
girlfriend.
She smiled with her red lips, but it wasn’t a real
smile.
Sugar Dolls melt away when it rains.
The following day it was raining, and she melted away
with all his money.
He never found his Sugar Doll.
Anna Stolze
Stopping air pollution
Professor Johnson explained the figures of
CO2 in the last 50 years.
He said: ‘What is most important is stopping
air pollution. To help you, our company offers
special seminars and small, but nevertheless
very effective filtering machines’.
After his talk, Johnson was driven to his
helicopter and flew home.
Karen Lendermann
Preparation
My whole body hurt, but I had to keep on going.
Since I got to this camp I had to work out for
the war. I was not afraid.
I looked up to the sky to a tiny star and smiled.
‘I’m glad to see you, my little earth’.
Jasmin Brüning
Adriana, dancer
She started dancing when she was four. She
went to her first audition when she was 12
and she had her first leading role when she
was 18.
She was 20 when she got hit by a car.
With 21 she abandoned hope of ever being
able to walk again.
Teresa Hammer
The final three …
A Beautiful Shade of Blue
Warmness was dwelling on his body.
He stared down in wonder.
Bloody. Red. Everything.
They were all watching when he stumbled forward
and fell on the ground. Lying in thick mud he looked
at the sky.
Wonderfully blue …
He closed his eyes.
‘Cut!’ a voice shouted. ‘Good job, guys!’
Clara Schmersträter
Saturn and Venus
Madame Rosa, the fortune-teller, had
a close look at her crystal ball.
‘Saturn will give you a magical
moment no one can ever forget. But –
I see Venus not allowing you journeys.
You should be very careful, Jaqueline’.
The next morning, November 22nd, the
Kennedys went to Dallas for
campaining.
Karen Lendermann
And the winner is …
The Beauty
He looked at her as she walked slowly towards him.
He thought that he’d never seen anything comparably
fascinating.
Her elegant figure was slender with long legs.
The sun let her black hair shine.
‘Jonathan,’ his mother said angrily.
‘I told you to kick this spider out. I hate them.’
Finja Staabs