Lemon Juice - By Jolie Grosskopf

Written By: Jolie Grosskopf

Category: Short Story

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

In the vast realm of storytelling, Jolie Grosskopf presents a remarkable short story titled "Lemon Juice." Entered into the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, this piece dives into the depths of human experience amidst a post-apocalyptic landscape. Grosskopf, writing under the name Lemon Juice, uses her narrative to explore themes of survival, memory, and enduring friendship. Her vivid prose invites readers to reflect on what it means to hold onto fragments of the past when the world as we know it has changed forever.

About the Work

"Lemon Juice" by Jolie Grosskopf is a poignant exploration of survival and introspection set against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic world. Through rich imagery and evocative storytelling, the narrative delves into the complexities of human relationships and the struggle to maintain hope and identity amidst chaos. The story reflects on the profound bond between friends, capturing the essence of memory and the haunting presence of the past. Grosskopf's style is both captivating and thought-provoking, inviting readers to ponder the resilience of the human spirit.

Lemon Juice

Original Submission by Jolie Grosskopf

Lemon Juice

The world ended 3029 days ago.

The chain grocery stores, the strip of dubiously authentic Indian and Chinese restaurants, the overpriced “thrift” shops catered to the White Environmentalist all had their windows broken in a panic. Grab and go. None could constitute a safe-house, or a home.

The Lemon Squeezer – I didn’t know what the building actually was until I was 12. For many years, I believed its singular purpose was to stand as a beacon for the making of primordial lemonade at the meeting of the land and sky.

It was Midnight Mass in memory of Fran’s grandmother when I stepped inside for the first time, her and her family in tow. Fran couldn't read the lyrics for Silent Night projected on the wall, instead mumbling along to the familiar melody. She still didn't have glasses when this began. I laughed in the church.

The second time I entered the Lemon Squeezer, it was at max capacity after we’d all ran in, desperate to escape that dreadful, blinding light outside. It was a gorgeous place to be, all things considered. I once believed grand churches and stained glass a sole feature of Europe, constructed only for families who ate from charcuterie boards and drank red wine with lunch: Lies of the West from back when I would’ve believed in anything.

We kept the place remarkably intact; The sanctity of the Lemon Squeezer, or perhaps the power of fear, prevailing at the end of the world. We stockpiled tinned food from the recent donations and rationed it accordingly. Then came the question of priorities: of who eats first, of caring for the sick and the elderly. Everyone wants to do the right thing in the house of God. Then your very nature starts to fight back, reminding you just how badly you want to live.

There came a point when nobody was sleeping at all: A primal instinct. We were being watched and not just by each other. There was a certain presence all of us were feeling which I couldn’t quite name at the time.

The Observer – The children couldn't stand it. They'd play outside in the muted glow of dusk until their parents' worry outgrew their sympathy and they were called in for bed. Oh, there was so much sympathy for the children. They had lost something too early: the unbridled honesty of youth. That amount should never go unsaid in a group so young. For adults, it's commonplace: unspoken words and social rules and deep wounds you’ll never allow yourself to give a voice to. Amongst children? They were like shrikes whose beaks had been ripped clean off.

In any case, we all knew the danger of the outdoors in absolute brightness and, rather than join that death, remained inside the Lemon Squeezer, resigning ourselves to a different kind of decay. But before that, none slept.

We’d lie in silence, nobody wanting to acknowledge the presence. There was none of the giggling and gossip of the sleepovers I grew up with though I did feel like I was back in boarding school trying to obey a strict curfew. As such, this presence would come in every so often to make sure we were behaving. It seemed the most obvious thing in the world to keep your eyes shut.

Still, some looked. They all did, eventually. For almost everyone, that action incited a certain rotting from the inside out. But, in the daylight hours, some of the long-time churchgoers from before, older women, would remark that they knew the presence intimately; that its sighting was nothing more than a pest in your garden. I thought they were just trying to muffle the sinking dread in the building or cling onto their Faith, despite the loss of hope, but they remained intact, unaffected. And, as I soon realised, I knew the presence, too.

Ally wanted to continue writing but the light was getting low and her eyes were straining. If she went on like this she’d need glasses soon enough: karma for laughing at Fran when they were girls. The thought made her smile. The two of them used to have such fun together, back when they were still learning the injustices of the world as a novel thing.

In grade school, when a teacher had wronged either Fran or Ally — called out missing homework, told them to remove the make-up they were too young for or, god forbid, tried to separate their desks — the girls would organise a break-time protest to deliver some monologue to the offending adults on their various shortcomings and implicit biases against strong-willed and sensitive young ladies. It was certainly the most fun Ally ever had, back then. She liked to think that Mrs Khoza felt the same.

Where was Fran now? Ally could feel her mind starting to wander and went to grab an oil lamp from the back of the greenhouse so she could keep writing. It had been so long since she was allowed to just sit and write. No roof to reinforce or supply run for her and Kat to make, just a quiet evening on the farthest outskirts of their community. She picked up her pen, hesitating for a second.

I worry I’ve begun this recounting at the wrong place.

Ally went into this wanting to write a fairly straightforward description of events she could read to the others here in the safe zone: people she considered family now. She needed them to know what had happened at the Lemon Squeezer near the start but it felt a lot like lying.

The day I drove Fran to uni felt like ripping entire chunks out of me.

She guessed that was a bit more truthful, even if she flinched seeing it on the page. She let her pen glide onwards.

Her res sat at the top of a hill, up the narrowest road I’ve seen to date.

“I guess this is it, Ally. The end of the line.”

“Don’t say that. It’s like 6 months ‘til you visit me.”

“Forever, in other words.”

A silence passed between us.

“I need you to promise not to get annoyed with me.”

There was a knowing, albeit slightly annoyed, look from Fran as I continued my sentence:

“Are you going to be OK?”

“When have I ever not been OK?”

I smiled softly, or tried to.

“That’s what I mean, babe. I want you to be able to tell me, you know? If things are bad. If it sucks and you want to come home.”

“You think it's going to suck?”

“I don’t know. Neither do you… Are you OK with that?”

For as long as Ally could remember, Fran always had an answer. What’s next week’s test on? Is this shirt too low-cut for work? Can you use pen ink for a stick and poke? Her answers weren’t always the right ones. Ally charged a matric R200 to give him a pen ink tattoo of a pine tree in the girls’ bathroom only for it to get infected and transform into more of a malformed arrow. Fran never seemed to regret her answer to that one, though. That one’s on Ally.

Fran slumped down on her new bed, arms folded.

Picturing the scene now, Ally imagined she probably could have had the same conversation with her own daughter one day, if the world had lasted long enough.

“Does it really matter? This is what you’re supposed to do, right? Grow up and leave home. Do everything that scares you. Try new things, make the world yours, all of it.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, everything.”

“I guess so.” I didn’t make eye contact with her after that. I couldn’t let her see that I didn’t like her answer because I always liked her answers, even when they were wrong. For it to have been different that time would have been one more piece of normalcy lost.

The long drive home was punctuated by the complete loss of any and all normalcy. A rolling sunset, the collapsing of a barrage at the horizon. It was as though the sun itself, in its infinite light, were making its way to me.

Then it was carnage.

Ally’s memory of how everything turned bad so quickly was rough but she couldn't shake the feeling that the universe had had a physical reaction that day to the separation of her and her best friend. The end of their life as girls. How could it have been anything else?

That piercing brightness outside only made the light, filtered through the stained glass murals, all the more hypnotic.

A lot of what I remember from the Lemon Squeezer is the nights. The gruelling, sleepless nights. A face above yours, staring you down, breathing on you, inching closer. A biological imperative to keep your eyes shut through that but in the daylight — when that deep blue colour in the background of the Mother Mary mural reflected off the floor — it was like finding yourself at the bottom of an ocean. Deep and safe. Tucked away.

Still, the night’s pressure dissolved almost everyone I’d come to know in that church. I had begun to think 10 year old Ally was right; the building was ancient and it wanted nothing more than to prepare its lemon juice once more. As such, it squeezed us all dry. Them all dry, I suppose, since I'm still here even now.

There came a time when the church was nothing more than bodies wandering endlessly, waiting to erode enough to stop moving. After a while, dead or not, I would drag them outside, to the mercy of that searing light. I couldn't bear the sight of their jutting limbs any longer. I’d convinced myself they could reanimate as spiders at will.

Then it was just myself and three other women. They'd all taken their look. The presence had spared them, I thought. Would it spare me? Something in me needed to know. Perhaps, I thought I, too, deserved to be given over to the light. Relinquish my mind; they could carry my body, the sacrificial lamb, out.

When I finally looked, it disarmed me.

It wasn't some new poison, wringing us out. It was the Oldest God I'd ever known.

The bathroom medicine cabinet.

The vanity in Fran's childhood bedroom.

The floor length windows in my ma's study at night with the lights on.

The lake a woman far older than me once used to bathe in.

Altars demanding you stop. You turn. You stare.

Fran and I, trying on each other's clothes, playing to the mirror, turning to the side, sucking in.

Her putting the eyeliner in my waterline for the first time because that's how you're supposed to do it, showing me how my face slims when my eyes pop.

“Feeling enlightened?” One of the women asked, dryly. Clearly more annoyed at our dwindling numbers than anything else.

Ally had said no at the time, reactionarily, yet she thought now that it was actually an enlightenment. The kind of enlightenment your auntie might tell you she’s discovered days before she joins a pyramid scheme: not entirely useful and with a great potential to drag you down.

It didn't kill her, though.

She wondered if Fran had met the Old God if she'd have withered away. Ally often regretted not staying in that dorm room a little longer, begging Fran to admit she also wasn't ready for the end and that she'd miss her so much her heart could break in two.

But Ally knew those things already, whether Fran could say it or not.

She rewrote their last conversation to feel some resolve, anyway.

…

“Yes. Everything.”

“It doesn't mean you can't be scared, Fran. Or say that you're scared. I was so scared when we were young and you showed me everything you knew. How to pick out jewellery, how to cry without your mascara running, how to laugh at a tasteful joke and raise your eyebrows at a sexist one, how to make a flower crown in winter when everything should be dead. Thank you for being young with me. I wish we could have learnt to be women together.”

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious event celebrating diverse voices in poetry and creative writing. This competition provides a platform for writers from around the globe to share their unique stories and perspectives. Participants engage with a vibrant community of creatives, showcasing their work and exploring the power of the written word. This annual event encourages expression and creativity, fostering a deeper appreciation for the art of storytelling.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to Jolie Grosskopf for sharing her compelling short story "Lemon Juice" with us. Her participation in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 highlights the power of narrative to explore complex themes and emotions. We look forward to seeing more of her insightful writing in the future.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.