my last meal with you by Ethan Cheng - LSBI runner up 2026 (Years 7-9)
Express Media is excited to publish the Years 7-9 runner up for the Little Stories, Big Ideas competition in the theme of ‘Shimmer’: ‘my last meal with you.’ by Ethan Cheng (NSW).
Little Stories, Big Ideas is a nation-wide flash fiction literary competition for Australian secondary school students. This round of the competition, we received an incredible calibre of flash writing entries from secondary school-aged writers across Australia. The winners and runners-up – chosen in collaboration with Prize Ambassador Amelia Mellor – impressed us deeply with their unique voices and perspectives. Working within a 100-word limit, these brilliant young writers created clever, moving and evocative windows into imaginative other worlds and rich inner lives.
Entries for Little Stories, Big Ideas Round 2 will open on August 3 2026.
my last meal with you.
my last meal with you still lingers – the sweet aroma of your cooking, dancing under the
sunlight, washing away our anxiety with joy.
But no more.
One night you entered your new world I could not follow, leaving my childhood in the doorway.
Please, Ma … forgive me!
A part of my soul fractures in your absence; I crave for your warmth in winter.
Ma, a part of me still denies your death. Perhaps you have not died yet. Maybe, we can live in the shimmer of the light you shone.
Ethan Cheng is in Year 8.