Radio Lanzarote has already chosen its winners of the XV edition of the Radio Lanzarote Summer 2025 Short Story Contest in which more than 120 stories have participated. This time, the contest has commemorated the centenary of the birth of the writer Carmen Martín Gaite (Salamanca 1925 - Madrid 2000).
Apart from the three winning texts, a special mention has also been made to seven other participants for the quality of their short stories.
The winner of the first prize has been Idoia Nereida Martínez Herrera, who has won a Jameos Noche dinner for two people, while the second prize has gone to José Vidal Bolaños Betancort, who will enjoy a dinner for two people at the Castillo de San José. Finally, the third classified has been Evelyn Megias Carrasco, who has won an Insolita Experience for two people.
First Prize
Title: Red like the jameos
Author: Idoia Nereida Martínez Herrera
[...]
She was red, like the jameos at sunset. She looked at me with shame, as if her career
was a sin.
The guy who was following her was wearing a suit.
She, dreams.
—I just want to dance, finally, without shoes —she said.
I drove to the Charco de los Clicos.
She got out barefoot, spun around and shouted her name to the wind.
Since then, whenever there is a full moon, I return to that corner with my feet
barefoot.
In case she decides to dance again.
Second Prize
Title: Geographies of Silence
Author: José Vidal Bolaños Betancort
[...]
She settled into the front seat, pointing decisively towards the sea horizon.
—To the fishing port, please, I'm in a hurry. —Are you traveling alone, madam? —For thirty long years. My husband thinks I'm buying bread. I smiled understandingly.
In the rearview mirror I watched the man walking slowly, unaware that his wife
was sailing towards unexplored territories of herself. —Do you know which ship you will take?
—The first one that takes me further away from who I was this morning. I drove slowly.
Some important trips are not in a hurry.
Third Prize
Title: Saving the world
Author: Evelyn Megias Carrasco
[...]
...and she hugged her cardigan as if it were a superhero cape. The man was not her
father, nor a thief. He was the monster from the dark room. “Can you fly?”, she
asked me when getting in. I nodded, of course. I stepped on the pedal as if we were taking off. “What if he
finds me?”.
I gave her my pilot's cap and said: “He only sees us if you stop imagining”.
She closed her eyes.
When we arrived at the vacant lot, she gave me a hug that lasted the entire recess.
I was nine years old. She was six.
And that morning we saved the world.
Finalists
Title: The station we never got to live
Author: Idoia Nereida Martínez Herrera
[...]
It was not the first time they had run away together, but they knew that this would be the last.
She had her eyes soaked with a goodbye, he was clenching his lips like someone keeping
a secret.
They went up without looking back.
When the engine started, he looked at me fleetingly in the rearview mirror.
It was my sister.
And that man... the love that I never had the courage to hold on to.
Without title
Author: Nere Tru Vi
[...]
It smelled of saltpeter and dawn.
She sat down slowly, with her pupils full of broken lighthouses.
—Do you know what it's like to live with tied words?
I didn't know what to say.
—Carmen said it: sometimes the body stays, but the soul flees first.
She dropped a notebook on my legs.
—There is what they didn't let me say. Burn it in Timanfaya. Let it mix with
the lava.
I started the car.
The radio was talking about the north wind. She closed her eyes.
She was no longer running.
She was flying with the volcanoes, finally, without fear.
Title: Without vertigo
Author: Miguel Ángel Cárdenas Barbero
[...]
—How far? —I asked him.
When she looked at me, I recognized myself and knew that I wanted to continue being it with her.
—Until fear gets tired of following us.
She smiled with cheeks full of wind and fire.
I started the car.
On one side, the sea breathed slowly; on the other, the jable advanced without asking questions, and in
front, the cliff, immobile, as if it already knew what we were going to do.
—Don't brake —she said, without raising her voice.
I accelerated.
I placed my hand on hers. On the radio was playing “Si tú no estás” by Rosana.
And she, finally, stopped looking back.
Title: Mom is not here
Author: Reyes María Concepción Betancor
[...]
Her eyes are already forbidden to enter my moments of laughter and games, to the premiere
of a new dress, to comb my hair, to cry if I burn myself. Mom is not here,
I don't see her. The music doesn't touch my fingers, my walk has become sad, ugly, I don't
understand the things I don't believe.
And the two of them watch over me, my brothers, the oldest and the youngest.
I get into the car in silence and sit down. They also miss the curls of
her hair and the smell of her memory.
Title: Fog at dawn
Author: Esperanza Tirado Jiménez
[...]
She sat down, slamming the door shut.
The man arrived panting, with his eyes bulging.
I started the car without asking. She was trembling, muttering something about a key and
a basement.
In the rearview mirror, I saw the man walking away, swallowed by the fog of the
dawn.
When I turned the corner, she took a gun out of her bag and pointed it at my temple.
—Thanks for the car. Now keep driving.
I didn't open my mouth.
Title: Mango
Author: Mónica Sánchez García
[...]
The truth is that I don't usually ask questions to my clients.
If it is the third girl they pick up this week or the location where we are going is
suspiciously close to a clandestine place, the truth is that I don't care.
When you work as a taxi driver you learn that part of what they pay for the trip
buys your discretion.
That's why I keep quiet. Although I allow myself to observe her out of the corner of my eye.
That's how I spot the silver handle that peeks out from under her jacket and
I understand why they were chasing her.
Then I realize that I'm screwed.
Without Title
Author: Roberto Tejera de León
[...]
She sat down in silence.
–Far from here?
She nodded, with her eyes flooded with tears.
I composed one of those compassionate smiles. I glimpsed the boy in the rearview mirror;
haggard face. Lost look. A classic, I thought.
I greeted the rest of the entourage. We all knew what we were going to.
You see, that is not just any dive. They call it La Última Copa.
They enter in pairs. They whisper. They murmur. But they don't toast.
Then, they leave one by one. Broken. Disjointed.
And we just drive. Far away. Without marked routes. Letting guilt
corrupt from within.
Well, the longer the mourning lasts, the higher the taximeter goes.
