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Read the 2026 Third Prize Winner: The F*ck Hamster bt Chris Durston

 The F*ck Hamster by Chris Durston The Fuck Hamster isn’t really a hamster. It sort of looks like one, and I guess in some ways it behaves like one, but it’s not really. People just call it that. It’s convenient. It does mean that it’s now really hard to talk about any other kind of hamster without people thinking you mean specifically the Fuck Hamster, but the distinction seems to have become kind of unimportant to most people anyway. We had some other hamsters in school before we got the Fuck Hamster, and those were OK. Some of them were even pretty useful. There was one that could eat test sheets and indicate whether the answers were correct, which saved some of the teachers a lot of time on work that was, you know, boring and kind of meaningless. But nobody really uses those hamsters anymore, even though they did some good stuff and didn’t need too much looking after. Because now we have the Fuck Hamster. And everyone must use the Fuck Hamster for everything, because it’s here ...
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Read the 2026 Second Prize Winner: The Ingredients of Home by Susan Swan

 The Ingredients of Home by  Susan Swan It’s dusk when I break in. A sign looms above the gate with a drawing of an Alsatian and a camera. I hadn’t noticed that in daylight. My heart pounding, I rattle the wire mesh on the gate, stop and listen for barking. Nothing breaks the silence except the alarm call of thrushes. I pull the hood of my parka down over my face and climb, jamming my toes onto the metal struts. Halfway up, I throw over the holdall, wincing as it lands with a thump on the other side. Someone might have heard that. After a few seconds, I climb some more until the top of the gate is level with my waist. Then I reach into the carrier bag hanging from my shoulder, pull out the pillow and flatten it over the barbed wire. One leg goes over, finds a foothold, then the other, like dismounting a horse. I ease the pillow from the barbs and drop to the ground, crouching in the undergrowth like a rabbit hiding from a fox. Beside me I notice a long gash in the fence held t...
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