“A Taste of Night” by Jamie Malina— Our December 2025 Bronze Medal Winner
Jamie is our third place winner from the contest posted in our December 2025 issue!
What the judges had to say:
“A very imaginative take on the writing prompt. A bounty of strong, sensual images.”
“The premise of this story had me intrigued right from the beginning, helped by the opening line that does a great job of hooking the reader; the abstract or liminal nature of the premise/setting was unique too and incorporated the ‘school’ aspect in a way that felt natural and essential to the story.”
“The author took a high-concept premise that could have stayed cerebral and made it achingly intimate.”
Meet Jamie
Jamie Malina is a Toronto-based assembler of sentences - the stranger the better. When he’s not imagining odd, faraway places and the people in them, he loves doing ordinary things: breathing, walking, and existing, preferably somewhere with a cottage and a lake. He’s working on his debut novel.
A Taste of Night
the unedited story by Jamie Malina
The first thing I saw was the endless stars and indigo of night. This was called “space,” my new mind told me. The building I was in was called “school,” even though it was night. Even though the building floated gently in an expanse of black. It was clear this place had taken on the image of a school to feel familiar to me. Even though I was sure I had never been to a school, never been alive at all until moments ago. I had no memory except of looking out this window, marveling at the twinkling of the mysterious lights cultivating envy outside.
The headmaster had summoned me to the library for a taste of tea. How I knew this, without knowing even who or where I was, the purpose and framing of my existence, I could not explain. I only knew that when I used my legs, moving past the yellow lockers into the stairs, the sensation of walking filled me for the first time, and I was overjoyed.
“I hope your journey was painless,” said the headmaster. He was everything I wanted him to be. Tall and indecipherable. Wise and angry. Intimate and untouchable. Comfortable and forever distant. The Other, I thought. How I must love others, thought I, to need this one so much my heart pounds and my hands sweat. I sat in the neat circular chair as he spoke onto me.
“We are waiting,” he said, “in this sacred in-between, I would invite you to have a taste of what is to come.”
This sentiment caused me, perhaps for the first time, to wonder: is there an after? In my brief thirty seconds of existence, I had known only now. How wonderful it was to consider that there might be an after. That this dance of request and reciprocation of my lungs and heart might go on forever. He asked me to choose a tea from which we might derive sensation and understanding. I obeyed, eager to please this more knowledgeable other.
“What are they?” I asked.
“They are your memories. Only, they haven’t happened yet.”
The library contained tins. Some dark, some luminous. Some floating and some dissolving so quickly they were gone before I had the embarrassment to glance away. I stood and reached towards a dusty rust-coloured tin that vibrated pleasingly in my small hands.
“A wise choice,” said the headmaster, tall and dark and heavy, “not so sweet, not so bitter. The choice of a discerning palate.”
He poured the dust into a decanter of water, which rebelled, fizzing, then produced a copper beverage, clear and orange as sunset.
“Drink deep,” he said, “and you will see what will be, when you enter the land of the living.”
As I swallowed my being was filled with fizzing loveliness. My core to the flesh of my arms filled with sensation: I was sitting on green grass, tickling and itching my bare thighs. I had the sensation of being weak and folded over, my head falling down onto my chest as hot water fell from my cheeks and onto my shorts. The feeling was overwhelming. I felt the summer breeze, my schoolbooks strewn onto what I learned was called the “lawn.” I had the feeling of being very small. Of being a small thing in a big world, of wanting and being denied. Of the unfairness of it all. I felt my back stretch as a stone of bitterness filled my chest and was released in a heaving of tears. I retreated to the study, the headmaster looking over me, having tasted the same flavour.
“I was crying,” thought I, “crying on a friend. The friend was called ‘grass,’ I think.”
“Why were you crying?”
I could only guess. I felt my mechanisms exposed under his gaze.
“I think I was crying because ‘grass’ was so beautiful. She touched me so gently I knew she was a friend. I loved her, and I was overwhelmed at the multitudes of her.”
The headmaster was amused at this and smiled kindly.
“A worthy interpretation. When you finally get to this event, you will be crying because you are separated from the one you love.”
“That’s silly,” said I, “aren’t they all in there together?”
“Indeed,” said the headmaster.
And I picked a new brew. This one was crumbly and small, and showed me what it was like to take care of someone very old, someone I loved, but someone that had lost their way. The next tea showed me magnificence, holding all I saw in my dominion, my powers of creation and consolation washing over those I cared for, and those I did not. I stood tall and radiant. The next, a river running over my hand, thoughts of my baby as I scooped the endless waters and washed it over my head, letting it seep into my soul.
Sometimes I wandered between tastings. In the mirrors and black windows, I saw a face reflected, a lined face burdened with sadness. I asked him what it was.
“It is you,” he said, “in the after of this life. She watches you because she cannot bear to leave.”
Sometimes I hid and wanted to be alone, away from the headmaster. I hoarded the things I had tasted like treasures, turning each one over in my mind. Wind! Ladybugs! Heartbreak! Honey! Garlic and snow. The spikiness of a rose stem. Glass ball rolling on hardwood floor. Sticky. Chalk. Squeak of shoe. Voice of mom. It came bursting from me as if from a ruptured balloon. I shook with the delight of it.
But soon he said I was to be born.
“What’s it like?” I asked.
“It is a new taste every day. An endless cascade. Only, those who live forget and think they feel nothing at all.”
I mastered my face. I would remember. But already I was forgetting those treasures which, not moments ago, had seemed indispensable to me.
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