August Summer Competition Fiction Winner: “What the Canvas Revealed” by Farytude

Ironside was a town on the edge of boiling by the time August rolled in.

By the third week of the month, the earth cracked like burnt bread. Windowpanes shimmered with trapped heat. Dogs wheezed in doorways, their eyes like dull marbles. The townspeople were exhausted and frustrated by the relentless heatwave that had dragged on for over five days. Summers in Ironside were harsh to begin with, but this wave made them unbearable. For years, no summer activities had been arranged during this season except for one.

The Summer Arts Competition was the only event that continued to be held, partly out of tradition, and mostly out of concern, as residents’ moods were often frustrated and irritable so some sort of healthy activity was desperately needed.  And the contest was always well received by a large number of participants despite the harsh weather. The competition lasted for two days, with a different prompt given each day to spark creativity and test the artists’ imagination.

None of Lira’s friends or family expected her to be a contender of this contest, as she was a reserved and quiet girl. She hardly interacted with anyone except for one or two close friends.

She arrived alone, quiet, with a backpack strapped to her back. Her clothes were plain. Her sandals worn. Her hair tied in a knot.

The contest clerk asked her registration details.
“Name?”
“Lira.”
“Age?”
“22.”

The clerk scribbled in silence and handed her a contestant badge with the number 17.

The contest started a week later. Painters scattered across Ironside, under shriveled trees. The town had arranged wooden benches and shade umbrellas in certain spots, though most participants brought their own stools, hats and water bottles. Most of them painted the heat – cracked oranges, dried eyes, empty wells, crumpled petals and the harsh sunny weather. Each artist tried to catch the stubborn beauty of a town that refused to wilt completely. A few children wandered around the painters, peeking at the works in progress while eating ice cream. 

Some painted quickly, bold and impulsive, while others dabbed carefully, as if uncovering secrets within the canvas. The judges would arrive by evening, but for now, Ironside had turned into an open-air studio – hot, burning but brimming with colors.

Lira walked past them all, and sat at a cornered bench where there were less people. She unfolded her easel, and began to paint. Her strokes were deliberate, swift yet fluid. The brush was unusual, its bristles shimmered, as if silver thread had been dipped in morning dew. She used oil paints to put down her imagination of a beautiful valley.

Tall cypress trees bowed over a cold, glistening river. Snow-capped mountains curved in the distance, their white peaks almost glowing. A soft blue sky stretched above, kissed with pale grey clouds. 

She painted the world she wished to live in – beautiful, quiet and cool. And as her brush moved, the air around her stirred.

First, it was a breeze. Then, the temperature dropped.

By evening, a crowd had gathered behind her, silent and stunned. The breeze had spread. The puddles in her painting seemed to widen. A child sneezed. Someone gasped. The scent of pine drifted faintly across the square.

Lira didn’t look up. Her hand moved steadily across the canvas, brushing mist over river stones, now highlighting the blue shade of a shadow beneath a tree. What she painted was not just scenery, it was a season the town had long forgotten.

And Ironside, to everyone’s disbelief, responded.

The wind softened. The sharp burn of heat retreated slightly, like a wild animal stepping back. Some people moved closer to her easel, drawn yet cautious, as if interrupting might undo the spell.

When the judges arrived just before sunset, they found the square unusually quiet. Paintings lined the usual display boards, bright and vivid, cracked earth, red suns, fire-hued skies. But a hush led them to the girl still painting.

The oldest judge removed his hat, blinking. “Is that fog?” he whispered. Another nodded, eyes fixed on the puddles forming gently at the base of the canvas.

“Who is she?” the youngest asked.

“Her tag says Lira,” someone murmured. “She’s new.”

The head judge stepped closer, now shivering slightly under the sudden coolness. “She’s not painting the heat,” he said. “seems like she is undoing it.”

Lira finally looked up, with the last brushstroke. She met the judge’s eyes.
“I just wanted to draw something like a dream and kinder than Ironside.”

No one spoke for a moment.

Then — applause, growing applause, rising into something Lira had never expected – The Recognition.

Her canvas sat there, glowing with its dream valley. And above it, for the first time in weeks, a single grey cloud appeared in the Ironside sky.

Lira slept lightly that night, her canvas resting near her. It had been a good day for her, as recognition, though rarely spoken of, is something everyone craves. It is both precious and rare, and she had tasted it, even if just for a moment.

In deep sleep, she felt that something move and brush against her feet. It was not an insect, but something from inside the canvas. She peered into it.

She found that the painting had turned into an exact version of Ironside, except it was not hot and burning. The weather was cool, just as she had painted it. In the middle of that valley, which now looked unmistakably like Ironside, a girl stood. And to Lira’s surprise, the girl looked just like her.

Then the voice came. Soft yet compelling.
“Paint again. You’ve only begun.”

Lira’s breath caught in her throat. The room was still. The canvas leaned where she had left it, quiet and unmoving, and already reverted to what she had painted earlier. 

She looked around. No footsteps. No glow. Just the hush of night pressing against the window. Her eyes lingered on the painting, then on the brush still stained with the blue of river shadows.

A dream, she told herself. Just a dream.

She laid back down, her heart still restless but her eyelids heavy. And as sleep claimed her again, a single thought hovered:

If it was a dream… why did the air still feel cool?

On the second and final day, the judges made an announcement.

“For your last challenge, paint what cannot be touched and make us feel it.”

The other artists panicked. “Love?” “Time?” “Hope?”

But Lira knew what to paint.

She carried her easel back to the same bench where she had sat on the first day, unrolled a fresh canvas, and laid out her used brushes, palette and oil paints.

She painted a barrier, a shimmer between two worlds. 

On one side: Ironside, sunlit and real. 

On the other: the dream valley, now twisted – stormy, eerie, and no longer a place anyone would wish to step into. 

Trees leaned at odd angles, as if darkness and sadness hovered over them, shadows moved in unnatural ways, and the sky was the color of a bruise. Between them stood a single brush, planted upright like a sword.

She realized the peaceful valley that she had seen in her dream had a cost. The girl in the dream looked like her, moved like her, but something in her eyes was hollow and dark. 

Lira’s painting captured the illusion; what had once seemed like an escape was actually a trap. Her dream had revealed the truth. The beauty she created had tried to lure her in.

As she painted, the puddles near her easel began to rise, forming mirror-like panels that hovered in the air. From the center, the painted version of Lira tried to step out. But Lira dipped her brush again and painted a closing gate. She painted mist curling around the barrier, locking it tight. The reflected girl screamed, a sound like cracking ice and thunder, and the puddles shattered into mist.

And Ironside… breathed.

Clouds gathered. Real clouds, the heavy kind, a joy for those who had lived under sun-scorched skies for far too long. Thunder rolled softly, like a distant drum. And then, to the disbelief of all, it rained. A soft, dreamy rain, scented with wet soil.

Lira looked up, drops speckling her arms, her hair, her canvas. The judges stood stunned, their clothes damp, their mouths open. She had painted something that couldn’t be touched: The Truth.

The truth that beauty isn’t always what it seems. That illusions can become cages. That sometimes, what we dream of most deeply can blind us to what we truly need. And by painting it, she freed not only herself, but Ironside too.

Because they had all been dreaming.

Dreaming of escape. Of cool skies and flowing streams. Of a better world than the one they lived in. But the heat hadn’t only parched the valley, it had scorched the hearts of the townspeople, too. They had grown impatient, short-tempered, hollow-eyed from too many restless nights. Children stopped playing. Neighbors stopped greeting each other. Meals tasted bland, chores felt unbearable, and even beauty — flowers, songs, laughter, seemed like burdens. Under the weight of the sun, they began to resent everything.

They had forgotten to appreciate the goodness in small things. They had lost the feeling of gratitude. And so they clung harder to the dream; the perfect, beautiful world, the world that didn’t demand effort or forgiveness or the burden of reality. A world that asked nothing of them.

But Lira’s painting showed them what they hadn’t seen. 

That the dream had begun to consume them. 

That chasing illusions had made them blind to what was real and worth saving. 

It had made them sad without knowing why, unkind without meaning to be.
Her brush didn’t just reveal a valley. It revealed the cost of forgetting the present.

And Ironside changed.

The air cooled. The heatwave broke. The rain washed away more than dust – it washed away the longing, the daze, the enchantment that had trapped the town in a restless sleep.
The head judge placed her hand on Lira’s shoulder.

 “We thought we needed a painting, but you gave us what we didn’t even know we were missing.” she said.

Lira clearly won first prize, not significant to many, but meaningful to her. And the people felt the prize was nothing compared to what she had done for the valley.

That evening, Lira sat beneath a tree, now glistening with rain. Her brushes and palette were still rich with color. Her canvas drying. Her smile, soft and full of satisfaction.

All around her, the town stirred — truly stirred — for the first time in years.
And as night fell over Ironside, it came like a lullaby after a long spell. 

Dark but with stars shining, offering hope for a better tomorrow. 

Farina Jaffer is a marketing professional who discovered a quiet escape in writing. She enjoys creating scenes that pull her into the world she imagines — a way to disconnect from everyday stress. A lifelong lover of fairytales and magical worlds, she now writes to connect those dreamlike places with the often tough realities of life. Writing under the pen name Farytude, she shares fictional stories, life reflections, and thoughts on health and self-awareness on medium.com/@farytude.