WinneroftheCardiffWriters’Circle Short Story Competition 2022
Katherine Wheeler
It’s hot. There’s a stickiness to the air – half sweet, half threat – and the boys have come to join their fathers in the bone yard.
It is this time of the year that the boys age up from play fighting and class scuffles of their schools and take on a trade. There are many new apprentices who are donning their work coats and trowels for the first time.
It is easy to forget that construction is a job. It is mindless. It repeats layer upon layer. The mortar is mixed with sand and water, spooned onto the edge of a trowel and the mixture patted into an even paste, upon which the long bones will be placed. Many of