The views at Scenic Writer’s Shack are so often nothing short of travel magazine-worthy, but today the view from the 3rd place podium is even better.

Komiko Noir’s story ‘THE GRAND SLAM GHOST’ haunted its way into 3rd Place in the Scenic Writer’s Shack 2026 Humorous Short Story Contest! 🥉

Its style of paranormal activity was way more ‘‘haha’‘ than ‘aaaaah,’ and you’ve likely never seen a ghost with such a killer overhead smash.

While most ghosts merely rattle chains, this one really knew how to raise a racket, while putting it’s own unique spin on the genre.

Before any more unfortunate tennis puns get served up, its time now to read on and enjoy author Komiko Noir‘s –

It was a moonless night when Finn, an aspiring paranormal vlogger, decided to spend a few hours in the notoriously eerie Blackwood Cemetery. His mission: capture definitive proof of the spectral presence rumored to haunt the oldest section. Equipped with a night-vision camera and an over-reliance on caffeine, Finn was ready.

As he crept past crumbling gravestones, a faint, rhythmic thwack–thwack echoed through the misty air. His heart pounded. This wasn’t the usual creak of branches or hoot of an owl. This sounded… deliberate. He slowly turned his camera towards the sound, creeping closer to a particularly weathered mausoleum.

There, in the faint glow of his camera’s IR light, stood a translucent figure. It was wearing what looked like vintage tennis whites, complete with a sweatband, and was vigorously swinging an antique wooden tennis racquet at an invisible ball. The ghost was panting, muttering to itself.

“Forehand… too weak!” it groaned, a wispy sigh escaping its ethereal form. “Net fault again! Oh, Harold, you’re losing your touch even in the afterlife!“

Finn nearly dropped his camera. It was a wrong end of the telescope moment, he realized, shaking his head. This wasn’t a menacing spirit, but a spectral athlete obsessed with perfecting his serve, even centuries after his last match.

Suddenly, the ghost spotted Finn. Its translucent eyes widened. “Oh, finally! A living soul! Care for a quick set? My partner, Reginald, quit after I double-faulted at match point back in 1892. Been looking for a decent opponent ever since!”

Finn, a recreational player at best, gulped. Being challenged to a tennis match by a Victorian ghost in the middle of a graveyard was not in his vlogging script. He politely declined, citing an urgent ‘appointment with a very living alarm clock.‘ As he scurried away, he could still hear the ghost’s disappointed thwack-thwack, forever doomed to serve aces to an empty court.

SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK is this week bittersweet proud to present our 2nd place winner’s story from our 2026 HUMOROUS SHORT STORY COMPETITION.

To our esteemed silver medalist, UK based Yvonne Lang, we say – you were this close to the top prize. But look on the bright side—you now get to spend the next week or so nursing a healthy, productive grudge that may very possibly fuel your next best-seller.

Coming in at a very prestigious, very impressive second place…

“So, let me get this straight – I told you to take care of the vampires, and you left toothbrushes and toothpaste in their garden?”

“Yes,” Esther answered, her bright earrings jangling as she nodded.
“So you didn’t kill them?” Derek checked. Esther’s eyes widened behind her purple rimmed glasses.

“Of course not. You asked me to take care of them!”
“Esther, I feel your staggering confusion about sayings has let us down again.”

Esther’s smile faltered.
“Oh no. Is this another one of those wrong-end-of-the-telescope moments?”
Derek massaged his temples.
“The phrase is the wrong end of the stick.”

Esther looked like a deer in headlights; a deer that had been dressed in a jumble sale by a blind woman. Derek had no idea if it she was on another one of her wacky home remedies again but she smelt like a takeaway.

“So you didn’t want me to take care of them?” Esther asked.
“Not literally no.”
“So I was meant to…”
“Kill them.”
“But that’s the opposite of taking care of them! I’m only a junior. You said I wasn’t up to being in charge of the swimming pool’s new car park. Why would you ask me to kill the undead? Actually – if they’re already dead does that mean I succeeded? An unintended concubine?”

“Consequence, not concubine. Are the vampires more dead than when you arrived?”
“No, they seemed quite chippy.”
“Why did you leave a dentists’ starter kit in the garden of vampires we are trying to evict?” A vein in Dereks forehead was pulsating.
“You told me to take care of them. They use their teeth a lot and oral health is important – often overlooked.”

An earlier comment of Esther’s suddenly resonated.
“Wait, they seemed chippy? How could you tell their mood?”
“I spoke to them.”
Derek was beginning to wonder if he was unknowingly suffering carbon monoxide poisoning delusions.

“You spoke to them?”
“They came out to see what I was doing. They were quite confused until I told them that you said if I took care of them that I could finally have a promotion. Which was great as in my last appraisal you said I could easily be replaced by a pigeon. Anyway, they offered me a better job themselves!”
“A job doing what?” Derek asked incredulously. Maybe being her employer would be what proved an end to their immortality.

“Bits and bobs. I’ve already done my first task for them.”
“Well I hope you are bloody more efficient for them than me. Did you understand their instructions?”
Esther nodded,
“Simple enough – remove the crosses and garlic from around your office.”
That focused Derek’s attention.

“Did it ever occur to you to ask why?”
Esther shook her head, earrings swinging,
“You don’t look a gift donkey in the mouth when the pension is that good.”
That butchered saying was the last thing Derek heard before Esther’s new employer flew in to take care of him.

Next week, the ghostly groans, giggles and guffaws continue with third place getter Komiko Noir‘s fun tale of overhead smashes and underworld specters –

SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK has previously explored the subject of women’s participation in the game of chess HERE and HERE.

Now comes a new NETFLIX documentary that examines the life of the greatest female chess champion in history, Hungarian-born Judit Polgar (now aged 50).

SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK boldly declares this 90-minute doco to be a five-star grand-master. It checks all the boxes for compelling, ‘brainy’ viewing.

Ladies and gentlemen, caffeine addicts, and people who spent three weeks staring at a blinking cursor only to write “The end” and call it a day—welcome!

THE SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK 2026 Humorous Short Story Competition asked you for comedy, and boy… did you guys deliver!

Received were stories that ranged on the laugh-o-meter from sympathy sniggers and gentle chuckles all the way up to – ‘I’m no longer reading this – I’m vibrating. With laughter‘.

But there can only be one winner. Well, three winners, actually. And here they are –

Were SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK a peacock, it would this moment be in full plumage.

We are tickled pink – actually, let’s make that a full-on shade of neon fuchsia – to present Samanatha’s winning story –

The day 56-year-old Manhattan dentist Phillip Yankum inherited run-down Blackwood Manor—a Victorian-era style house complete with suspicious turrets and windows covered in ‘ghost smudges’ – he arrived armed with nothing but an old bag of cleaning rags. In his back pocket however, he carried a state-of-the-art, Bluetooth-enabled Oral-B Pulsar 9000. You never knew when one of those might come in handy.

Working his way through the dust covered interior with its heavy-on-the-unsettling-oil-paintings aesthetic, Phil ascended the rickety staircase, trying not to breath in the damp air that smelled of wet cardboard and the lingering scent of a cabbage soup made in 1924.

Pushing open massive oak doors, Phillip crept into the master bedroom. In the corner, magically hovering above a stained marble sink, was a floating toothbrush. Phillip was temporarily frozen to the spot in amazement. He’d seen plenty of horror stories inside people’s mouths, but this was somehow more jaw-dropping.

The toothbrush wasn’t merely floating; on closer inspection Phillip could see it was performing a vigorous, mid-air cleaning of an invisible set of teeth. The brush scrubbed with a frantic, aggressive energy, its “sensitive gums” light flashing a panicked red.

“Um,” Phillip whispered. “That’s my plaque-control head.”

The toothbrush froze. Then, with a violent whir, it dived at him. Phillip shrieked, a sound usually reserved for Victorian orphans, and sprinted down the hallway. The ghost of Blackwood Manor, it turned out, was Sir Alistair Blackwood, a 17th-century aristocrat who had died of a catastrophic tooth abscess and was now obsessed with modern dental hygiene. He didn’t want the dentist’s soul; he wanted his bristles.

Phillip dove behind a crumbling velvet settee as the brush buzzed overhead. It was most definitely a wrong-end-of-the-telescope moment. In the grand scheme of the universe, he was being super-aggressively peer-reviewed by a spirit with a piece of molded resin and a two-minute timer.

“Enough!” Phillip yelled, finally mustering some of his Manhattan ‘Do you know who I am?’ confidence. “Sir Alistair, I presume? You’re using the wrong setting! That’s the ‘Deep Clean’ mode. It’ll ruin your ghostly enamel!”

The toothbrush paused, hovering mid-air with a curious tilt.

“You need the ‘Whitening’ pulse,” Phillip advised, slowly approaching. “And for heaven’s sake, you’re not even using paste. Do you want the phantom gingivitis?“

Amidst the cold air, he reached out and took the vibrating brush. Carefully, Manhattan Phil applied a pea-sized amount of “Cool Mint” gel. He clicked the button twice to the “Gentle Massage” setting and handed it back to the void. The brush began to move again, but this time with a rhythmic, satisfied hum. A faint, translucent sigh echoed through the bathroom.

For the rest of the night, intrepid cavity crusader Phillip Yankum sat on the edge of the tub, reading a magazine he’d retrieved from his car, while a dead nobleman polished his non-existent molars. Phillip thought about leaving a bill but realized that would be so transparently absurd.

Tune in next week when we are treated to 2nd place getter Yvonne Lang‘s garlic-mouthwash-flavored giggler –

While you’re here…check out this new 2026 read from the South Korean author who penned the bestselling “Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop’.

A special announcement for all word-wonks and aspiring class clowns: we have now reached the ‘frantic typing while dressed in your bathrobe’ stage of the 2026 SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK HUMOROUS SHORT STORY COMPETITION.

If you’ve been sitting on a comedic masterpiece—or even just a moderately amusing anecdote about a goat—the window of opportunity is closing faster than a laptop lid when a boss walks by.

Comedy is tragedy plus time, but if you run out of time, it’s just a tragedy. Don’t let your literary genius die in your “Drafts” folder alongside that half-finished screenplay about a detective who is also a dog.

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All details about the competition – including where to send entries – can be found HERE.

So before SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK closes its double-glazed decorative glass submission doors for another year and leaves you alone with your puns, send your funny, honey!

Eternal glory and a boost to your ego, not to mention hard cold cash and the chance to perform the SCENIC WRITER’S SHACK winner’s dance are yours for the taking.

SWS Victory Dance (Click HERE)