Category Archives: flash fiction

flash fiction

‘Bloom’

This is the story that recently won the 2021 Bellingen Writers festival writing competition. It’s a piece of feminist political satire. Enjoy.

The five remaining competitors stood in a line on the lawn, cradling instant coffee cups and breathing out a collective cloud that mixed with the winter morning mist. An official drone zipped and hovered over the compound, just as it had done for the previous three days.

Sharlene looked down at her sweat-stained yellow ‘unisex’ tracksuit that was too wide in the shoulders and long in the legs, but too tight across the hips and bust. Clearly unisex meant ‘men’ with the label removed.

Since she arrived on Thursday, she had not been allowed to make contact with the outside world or to shower, and it was this second detail that bothered her the most on this final day of competition. She had woken that morning with patches of angry red chaffing on her thighs and in her arm pits and a strange yeasty smell she couldn’t quite explain. But a win today would see her secure pre-selection with the full endorsement of the Crooked Bay local government sub-branch; a win today would kick-start her political career. Her spring bud would finally come to bloom.

Yesterday she had won the penultimate challenge. The warehouse building at the side of the compound had been set up to look like a shopping mall. She had successfully filled her reusable bag with ethically produced items, returned a lost child to the help-desk, located a defibrillation machine and performed life-saving CPR on an elderly gentlemen and got back to the car in time for afternoon school pick-up. She even had time to apply red lipstick, and in the heady thrill of the win, she could hear the excited voices of the commentators and the film crew packaging sound bites to use in the publicity package. She felt as if she could win this.

The group were ushered towards the bottom of the compound, past the fence lined with thick sheets of black plastic. A group of organisers stood in close proximity, huddled around a cardboard box. The presence of the film crew signalled that this was indeed the site of the final challenge. A grey-haired man with a thick moustache and army boots ushered the competitors to form a line. In his arms were a stack of what looked like colouring books and he handed one to each competitor, along with a red pencil. He stepped back and in the click-flash of the cameras, addressed the group.

“This is your final challenge. It’s aptly called Policy Graveyard. One single wrong choice, one single error in political judgment, and your political career will be dead before it even starts. Frozen in the eternal winter suffered by candidates that no one will ever remember. But win, and you will already have a set of winning policies to take to the upcoming election.”

Sharlene smoothed down her tracksuit and took three deep breaths. She felt for the lipstick in her pocket as a rising sense of feverish excitement rose in her stomach and spread itself like thrush. Every sinew and surface of her body prickled with anticipation. She wanted this. Decision making under pressure. She could do this. Had to do this.

“You have ten minutes to complete the challenge. In your books are a series of ten gravestones, all representing potential policies. It’s a simple game of noughts and crosses. Cross out the policies you reject, circle the ones you support. Make a wrong choice and your political career ends today.”

The five competitors had a staggered start, one minute apart. Sharlene went last. As she dashed through the plastic covered gates, she could finally see what was on the other side. A path was marked out with arrows on the ground, and the large area was dotted with huge Styrofoam structures that looked like oversized clipboards. On each was taped a sheet of paper.

As she got closer to the first one, Sharlene could make out the words. One- FREE CHILDCARE- A tough one. In theory she supported it, but she knew that middle aged voters hated the idea of women mooching off the system. Men generally saw it as a women’s issue and struggled to find their own equivalent. She crossed it out. Two. CURFEW FOR TEENAGERS. Hmm. Circle. Three. COMPULSORY MILITARY BOOTCAMP FOR THE UNEMPLOYED. Smirk. Circle. Five, six, seven and eight were a series of centre right choices, no problems there. Nine. INCREASE THE RETIREMENT AGE TO 75. Okay, this was a challenge. She thought about her electorate. Lots were too young to care, lots had already retired. It was just the vocal 40-60s group she was worried about. She crossed it out. All that remained was number ten.

The final oversized novelty clipboard loomed before her. She could see on the oversized novelty clock that she had less than 60 seconds to make her final policy decision. QUOTAS TO ENSURE THE EQUAL REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN GOVERNMENT. Sharlene stopped and felt time slow down. She was a woman, so she wanted to circle it for herself and all the young women of the future. For them to attain the ripe autumn harvest of their struggles. But…she knew the arguments around merit and knew that endorsing it was a bad idea. She’d won these challenges fair and square. She could make ethical choices AND wear lipstick. She took her pencil and firmly crossed out the last policy on her list.

The other competitors were all laying exhausted on the grass, and the official came around to check their entries. Over the loudspeaker Sharlene could hear crackling and hissing and the reverb drilled into her frontal lobe.

“The successful candidate is Mitch Reynolds.” A murmur swept through the crowd. “And he will campaign for equal representation for men and women in government.”

Sharlene felt like she was suffocating in her unisex uniform. She felt the suffocating weight, like heavy woodsmoke in the dead of winter. On her skin the rash kept spreading like ill-informed votes across the map on election night.

Standard
flash fiction

Slave to Coffee

This story was inspired by my current Year 11 English class. There are some dedicated coffee drinkers in there and we recently had a chat about the perfomance enhancing qualities of coffee. I told them my two favourite phrases about coffee. 1. Coffee is survival juice. 2. A yawn is a silent scream for coffee. This sci-fi story is my entry for the semi-finals of the NYC midnight flash fiction competition, but I wanted to have some fun with it and come up with a story that had a life outside of the writitng competiton. This one is more like Hitchhiker’s Guide than hard sci-fi and I tried to go big and silly, instead of technical and detailed.

Synopsis: surviving on a hostile alien planet is hard, but doing it without coffee is impossible.

Slave to Coffee

Carlo was abducted by aliens before his morning coffee. He could remember opening the front door to a strange sound, a rush of air and then waking up in some sort of padded shipping container. Groggy, he came-to with discomfort and a lingering coffee craving. His lungs felt heavy, but he checked himself and found he was breathing normally. There was no chrome gadgetry in here like in those 90s films, no sterile probing labs or superior biomechanical lifeforms standing over him. Instead, Carlo turned to see a fleshy yellow creature twitching and taking a series of rapid breaths. On the other side an almost human looking creature with overly long arms was shaking and making a series of wet, sucking sounds. There were seven of them in total; Carlo, the yellow lumpy thing, the long arm thing and four other creatures united by a few common features; they were all breathing and each had variations on limbs, ears, eyes, and mouths. None looked exactly human, but they weren’t far off.

The container shuddered to a standstill. They had arrived, but where? Why? A high-pitched siren screeched inside the vessel and one rectangular wall fell away to reveal a large green oasis encircled by tropical-looking trees with buttress roots and large leaves. The sky behind was a pale mauve and Carlo blinked at the majestic beauty of the vista. The other creatures were manoeuvring their way from the vessel to get away from the siren and Carlo did the same.

He found his large feet and legs gave him an advantage on the soft ground, and he stepped over the yellow lumpy thing which was now having obvious end-of-life convulsions on the grass. When the creature stopped moving, the others looked on in shock as a mass of white tentacle-shaped worms emerged with razor teeth, ingested the creature, and retreated beneath the soil again in a matter of seconds.

Another siren sounded and a series of bright orange holographic arrows appeared, marking a path through the trees. Despite his pounding head and hatred for running, Carlo did not need any more encouragement to put some distance between himself and those flesh-eating worms. The other creatures had the same idea. A smallish humanoid with long legs and pink skin darted ahead and disappeared into the jungle and the long-armed creature broke into a four-legged run and loped off in second place, with Carlo in third.

The jungle was humid and Carlo was trying to remember what he’d learnt in science class. There were plants, steam and the worms signalled a food chain. The fact he was breathing was an indicator of an atmosphere. The trees looked exaggerated and cartoon-like, similar to what he imagined the Cambrian era was like on Earth.

He arrived at the edge of a lake where a large holographic display map flickered to life in front of him. It showed the orange arrows dancing in a line across a series of images: a lake, a grassy expanse and ending at a big stone circle. Get to the stone circle? Survive? Was he in some kind of tournament? Kneeling at the water’s edge, Carlo noticed it was sightly purple with little pops of effervescence. He tentatively cupped some to his mouth and while it wasn’t coffee, it had a slightly sweet, satiny mouth feel that quenched his thirst. He waited for the skin on his hands to peel off, or his insides to dissolve but they didn’t. He set about fashioning himself a crude dinghy from some broken jungle branches and lashed it together with vines, pleased to have opposable thumbs. He couldn’t risk drowning, but didn’t trust the craft, so he used it as a buoyancy device. Behind him, one of the larger humanoids had gotten a short way across the lake before slipping under the surface. A series of splashes followed and then silence as it disappeared under the water. Carlo kicked harder and dragged himself panting onto the safety of the bank.

His legs were tiring as he emerged into the grassland. The mauve sky was tinged with pinks and reds and again he had a flashback to Science class, reading about the savannahs of prehistoric earth. A group of herd animals that looked like goat giraffes registered his presence before returning to their foraging. They were standing on their hind legs, attempting to reach the waxy fruit of a plant with oval-shaped leaves. But why was this scene so familiar? Then he remembered. He’d been waiting for a triple shot espresso, reading about the history of coffee. Ethiopian goat herders noticed their animals were friskier after nibbling on the red berries from a sub-tropical plant. And now, on this alien planet, he found himself gazing at a dense grove of oversized coffee plants, groaning with ripe red beans. With the promise of coffee providing fresh clarity, Carlo knew what he had to do.

From a distant galaxy the scene was watched by millions. The stone circle had one opening, and a holographic finish line glowed across it. A humanoid with long arms was seen approaching with labored movements followed by a second creature, pink and limping. But then, as if out of nowhere came the thundering of heavy cloven hooves in the mud. On the animal’s back was a sub-species of humanoid many had discredited as too lazy to survive, let alone win the tournament. He had one arm around the animal’s neck, and in the other he clutched a huge branch laden with bright red berries. A grin was stretched across his face and red juice was running down his chin as he burst across the finish line. Holographic victory lights went whizzing above his triumphant head.

That was the day a superior slave species was discovered. Not only had the human survived in an ecosystem not conducive to highly-evolved intelligent lifeforms, but he had managed to identify what was to become the most lucrative plant crop in the history of the universe.

Standard
flash fiction

A Grain of Sand

This is my first round entry for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction competition.  My title was inspired by the SBS interactive K’Gari that attempts to debunk Australia’s first fake news story; that of Eliza Fraser and her deceitful recount of the time she spent with the Butchulla people after she was rescued from a shipwreck. It was written during a family holiday on K’Gari (Fraser Island).

 

A Grain of Sand

Below the towering turpentine trees and scribbly gums, below the banksias and paperbarks, below the soft sedges, the thin layers of leaf litter, the sleeping spirit starts to stir….

 

Mark had been nervous about taking his little girl to the island. It was a four hour trip across the bay in the motorboat and then another half day on foot to the camping ground at Lake Mackenzie. Kirra had always been a daydreamer, but now her teacher was suggesting there was something more serious going on. She’d used the term ‘neurological’ and ‘seizure’ and given the child’s vacant stares and prolonged spell of mutism, the teacher recommended they visit a paediatrician. Mark agreed, but as the promise of summer stretched ahead of them, his concerns ebbed away. He focused instead on preparations for their trip.

 

The journey across the bay was smooth going in the motor boat. Kirra sat still for most of the way, gazing out across the water. When Mark would start to worry, she would point out a pod of dolphins, a school of fish, or the dark shadow of a stingray in the depths and her brown eyes would twinkle with wonder. When Mark dragged the boat above the high tide line and hitched it to a Kauri pine, he felt relief at being away from the daily routine. School. Work. While he secured the boat, Kirra paused with her ear to the sand, listening intently to the pops and gurgles as the high tide lapped across the beach. While he was organising their gear, she made a fishing line garland of orange mangrove flowers. Finally, with their packs on, the two set off through the thick afternoon heat towards the cool waters of Lake Mackenzie.

 

There is a dreamtime story. It tells the legend of Booragin who formed the bay and placed the first rocks to trap the sand. Princess K’Gari, the sky spirit, joined him and when they were done, she was so in love with this place that she begged to stay here forever. Booragin was reluctant, but agreed, and she lay down in the warm waters. Her body became the statue that formed the island; her back became the straight Western coastline and her knees tucked up towards her soft belly and breasts to form the sheltered curve on the Eastern side. Booragin looked upon Princess K’Gari as she slept. He wanted to protect her, so he covered her body in trees and plants to keep her warm; he gave her a voice by putting breeze in the forests and water in the creeks, and finally he formed crystal clear lakes that gave her eyes to gaze out on the world.

 

Mark was setting up camp and didn’t notice the little girl slip away. She moved so lightly that her feet barely imprinted the sand, and a gentle breeze was enough to dust over her tracks. There was barely a ripple as she was pulled under the surface, and she made no sound as the earth’s tendrils tugged her through the blue black water. On the surface all was still again, the water a perfect replica of the sapphire sky.

 

Deeper she went, past the black veil layer of silt and white silica sand until she came to rest in an underwater cave. The walls around her were curved in undulating folds of compacted yellow, brown and orange sand. She took a deep breath and found the air cool and her body dry. Her wide eyes blinked as she touched the rough wall with her hand and felt a soft rumbling begin in her belly and flow up inside her chest. As the vibration grew, her body began to shudder and she sucked for her breath in short bursts. And then she heard something strange yet familiar- her own voice- speaking gently from a foreign place.

‘I am a grain of sand.’

 

When Mark saw Kirra’s silhouette on the bank, he ran down and threw his arms around her. She looked at him for a long time, and lovingly touched his weathered face. Then she looked down at her own arms, as if seeing them for the first time. She opened and closed her fingers, fascinated, and ran them through her curly brown hair. Next she grabbed handfuls of dry sand, blew gently on it, and sent white glitter dust into the breeze. Then came the rush of words, of questions, observations and onomatopoeic sounds. It was as if she was seeing the world brand new.

 

For the rest of the day she followed Mark around asking him all sorts of questions- about the plants, the fish, the sky, how the trees grow, how the sun shines, how the moon moves the tides, how the sand is made, how fish breathe underwater and what makes the rain. Mark tried his best to answer her, and was overjoyed at hearing her voice after so long. She set about feeling all the textures of the trees and earth, water and sand. She did cartwheels and handstands and danced along the beach. But when she asked about life off the island, her countenance darkened at his responses. She did not like his explanations of roads, pollution, rising seas or the cruel and ignorant habits of people.

 

As the sun set on the lake, a deep silence fell on the girl. She turned towards her father and said in a voice barely audible.

‘I am a grain of sand.’

 

And then she slipped into the water and disappeared under the surface. In the flooding orange pink light of sunset, the lake began to quiver and glow with an otherworldly light and a deep vibration made the sand shake and hum. Mark waded in, carried Kirra’s shivering body from the lake and cradled her in his lap. When he looked down at her face, the faraway look had returned. He bent forward and stroked her hair.

‘We are all grains of sand.’

 

 

Standard
flash fiction

The Shadow Factory

Below is my second round story for NYC Midnight Flash Fiction. I won’t know how this one scored until next weekend, but I found writing in the genre of fairy tale enjoyable and somewhat liberating. I drew inspiration from Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’.

 

The Shadow Factory

The old man held his grandson’s hand and the two walked towards the quiet part of the city.  Beyond the flashy entertainment and restaurant districts, past the sparkle and glitz of the retail quarter, their steps became slow and hollow on the stones. In the late afternoon, in the fading warmth of the sun, the man’s shadow was far ahead of him, looking through the dusty storefronts of the first few vacant buildings, appearing around corners and on walls before melting through the one-way glass of empty factory windows. The small boy beside him cast no shadow at all. On the boy’s face was the constant visage of disconnected euphoria, lips parted, the beginning of a smile, but a cold faraway look in his eyes.

 

In the fading light the man almost lost sight of his own shadow, but as he rounded the corner he saw the rectangle grey building that was their destination, and when he came to stand under the neon blue security spotlight, his shadow complied and fell back in under his feet. On the door there was a tarnished brass plaque that read ‘DarkenUp Industries’. The man knocked hard three times and waited for the soft click and low groan as the door inched open.

 

A stooped elven figure motioned the two inside and offered for them to sit at the walnut reception desk. The room hummed a little, as if somewhere in the bowels of the building, cogs were grinding and pistons were thrumming. When they were seated, the elf took his place again behind the desk. Elves were so often lithe and ethereal, but this one was ruddy with a nose ring and an eyebrow piercing.  His hands were square and gnarled at the knuckles and he turned up the oil lamp so that orange light licked the walls. In front of him he had readied a little pot of ink, a quill pen and piece of heavy parchment.  ‘Thank-you for meeting with us,’ said the man as he gestured towards the boy. ‘I really had nowhere else to turn and…’ The elf raised a hand in a motion for the man to stop.

‘Am I correct that you wish to make a formal request?’  The man nodded emphatically. The elf considered him sternly, then turned his attention to the child, whose expression had not changed. ‘Then I ask that you proceed in the agreed manner. Once I have documented your preamble, you may sign the form and we can finalise your request.’ The man sighed deeply and began…

 

‘Once upon a time there was a man who knew both light and dark. He was an honest man who worked hard every day, but he also grappled with the dark side of his nature. And it exhausted him. He would go to work and do his best, but would ignore someone begging on the street. He would gamble, and enjoy it. He would carry in wood for his elderly neighbour, but he would not stop to help a stranger in need. He would drink, and enjoy it. When he and his wife conceived a child he was overjoyed, and his one great desire was for the child to know more of the light and goodness in the world, and less of the dark. He wished for their child to have none of the failings of which he suffered. His wife wished for the same and they would sit up long into the night, hoping and dreaming for a child who was always good and kind and pure of heart. Their baby daughter came, and she flourished. Everyone noted the child’s kind disposition and how her days were filled with good deeds and random acts of kindness. When the golden-haired girl stood in the midday sun, she barely cast a shadow on the earth, such was the lightness of her soul. In time she met another kind-hearted soul and the two started their own family…’

 

The elf tapped his knuckles against the table, impatient for the man to finish.

 

‘But when the man became a grandfather and first held his grandson, he knew something was terribly wrong. As the boy grew he never frowned or cried or showed any emotion whatsoever, save for a kind of cold, disaffected euphoria. And he cast no shadow.’

 

The elf completed his scratchings and slid the page over to the man. ‘I understand you are here to purchase a shadow for the boy. Please read the disclaimer…then sign here.’ As the man signed, his signature seemed to glow with an otherworldly light, and a chill settled on his body. Then the elf stood and motioned for the two to follow him through a small door at the back of the room.

 

The shadow factory was a series of dark rooms with whirring machines and holding pools. In one room there were a series of tanks, with what looked like sparkly black fish darting about in moon-blue liquid. The elf took up a small net, expertly scooped up a fish and in a fluid motion, grabbed the boy’s arm and drew him close. He deftly pinched the child’s nose and when the boy opened wide to suck in breath, the elf slipped the wriggling black blob into his mouth. The boy gulped, wide-eyed, then stumbled back before doubling over. In that moment two elf factory workers, dressed in grey overalls, ushered the man into a different room so that he could fulfill his side of the agreement.

 

The two left the factory district. The child held the man’s hand in the dark. As they passed back through the flashy lights of the entertainment district, the child was wide-eyed and his cheeks grew stained with the hot tears he cried for the pain and poverty of his city, for the sorrow of his fellow man.  Beside him the old man was not moved by any site he saw, and he cast no shadow.

Standard
flash fiction

Bella Vista Dave

This was my entry for the semi-final round of NYC Midnight flash fiction comp. I was unhappy with so much about this story; I struggled with drama and the pool as a setting stumped me. In the end I got thinking about internet trolls, and how they have to be someone’s neighbour, and this in turn gave me a vision of Dave, lolling in the pool. My synopsis:

‘You may be offended by the sight of Fat Dave in the pool, but at the end of the day, there’s not much you can do about it.’

 

Bella Vista Dave

In the centre of the Bella Vista complex was the pool area. From all four townhouses, residents could look down on this tropical oasis. From above, it was the picture of perfect symmetry. Around the outside were gardens of golden palms, birds of paradise flowers, and the pink and orange of fringed hibiscus flowers. Tasteful sandstone tiles lined the perimeter of the rectangular pool, framing the deep sapphire blue of the water.

 

But use of the pool had become the subject of a number of complaints from the residents, and the body corporate had decided to settle the matter by vote at the upcoming AGM.  You see, at any time of the day or night, residents could look down and see the lolling figure of Dave on a Lilo in his tight shorts. Fat. Hairy. Often drunk. And they wanted it to stop.

 

Life was nearly perfect for Laura Randall, the resident at Number One. Her parents had bought her this townhouse, she had just been made assistant manager at Kara’s Kosmetics and she was certain Mike was going to propose to her any day now. She and Mike had spent most days in the pool last summer, but since Dave came and ruined the serenity, Mike had taken to surfing instead, and she was seeing less of him than she liked. When she looked down and saw Dave out there again, she swore under her breath and pursed her lips. She would definitely be voting to have him banned.

 

The resident at Number Two was Carlos. His son had left that year to study abroad, and Carlos often found himself sitting by the pool, contemplating life. But it seemed that no sooner had he sat down, Dave would come down and bomb into the water. They’d had some verbal confrontations early on, and Carlos worked to control his rage. Looking down at the prick, beer in hand, fat toes in the water, Carlos found himself fantasising about what he’d really like to do to Dave. Grab him by the throat. Hold him under the water a little too long. Feel the life drain out of his flabby body. But it had taken Carlos years to learn to control his anger and he wasn’t about to lose control on some pathetic slime ball loser in the pool area. Let the vote decide.

 

Elizabeth Perkins, resident at Number Three, had been the most vocal about Dave and his use of the pool. She had just retired from a long career as a school headmistress and was desperate for some rest and relaxation. Early on she had visited Dave at Number Four and implored him to give her some space. He’d given her a dumb confused grin and closed the door in her face. She tried to find out more about him, but there wasn’t much to know. He worked online from home, which was the reason he always seemed to be around. After she let her feelings be known, he made a point of coming down every time she tried to swim. And he started doing the same to all the other residents. It was Elizabeth who had petitioned the body corporate for a vote and she couldn’t wait for the outcome. If a majority agreed- and she knew they would- Dave would be restricted to using the pool between the hours of four and five PM.

 

But on the evening before the vote, all three residents received an unsolicited email. Sender unknown.

 

Laura sucked in her breath when she opened her inbox. Sitting there, at the top, was an email with a subject title that read ‘tinder slut’. She glanced around out of impulse, to make sure she was alone in the room. There was no written message in the body, but there were a series of dated photographs, showing Laura at a bar with an older man. Laura had kept her tinder habit alive a little too long after starting her relationship with Mike, and these photos were evidence that she had been unfaithful.

 

Carlos felt most lonely at night, and this had him more often going to his inbox, hoping for news from his son. When he saw the email with the subject line ‘manslaughter’ he thought there was some mistake. When he opened the message, he was shocked to see that it featured an image of a young Carlos in a mug shot, during a time in his life he had worked hard to put behind him, to forget. He’d gone to jail for manslaughter, served eighteen months for a stupid drunken fight, but had learnt his lesson. He had hoped his son would never find out. Carlos felt his pulse quicken and a tightening in his chest.

 

Elizabeth had always been proud of the way she maintained her double life. She prided herself on being dependable and professional in her working life, and for the way she concealed her private indulgences. When she checked her emails on the evening before the vote, she was shocked to see a message with the subject line ‘dear dominatrix’. Her back stiffened, and she leaned closer in to the screen before clicking it open. In the body of the message were a series of stills taken from what looked like CCTV footage at the underground club she frequented. Despite her half mask, one of the images was obviously her. She stood up and stumbled back from the screen.

 

At the body corporate meeting, the executive members were surprised to find that no-one had voted to restrict the resident at Number Four from using the pool. The matter was closed and they moved on to other agenda items.

 

***

 

From above, the swimming pool at Bella Vista was the picture of perfect symmetry, ringed by tropical gardens, the water a deep sapphire blue. On any given day, the residents could wave down at Dave, as he floated, legs spread on his Lilo, like some fleshy exotic flower.

Standard
flash fiction

Daughter of Loki

 

There is a great burden in holding the darkness of mankind. Not even a goddess can do it for eternity.

***

 

The wide freight platform jerked and rattled lower, deeper into the earth. Helen unconsciously held her breath. The ice-blue sky was receding above and she shook the last of the fresh breeze from her hair. No one attempted small talk; all gave themselves over to that feeling of being swallowed by the earth.

 

Once they shuddered to a stop there was much movement. People lifting heavy reinforcement beams and metal scaffolding that would secure the site and others rolling out the huge drums used for removing earth to the surface. Helen recalled the exciting phone call from the archaeological team. A major discovery…a large section of what appeared to be a Viking village near Uppsala…swallowed by a landslip around 880…implements, jewellery, armour and what appeared to be a fully intact wooden tomb.

 

Helen moved toward the wooden structure. It was lined in oak planks and looked more like a small antechamber than a tomb. It had survived the landslip intact. It had tumbled in the landslip, but the slow motion twisting of the earth had not destroyed it. After a tense hour the door finally groaned open.

 

Across the black fen comes a wretched soul, in her arms something delicate wrapped in a mess of swaddling rags. Her feet sink in the mud and only the crescent moon bears witness to her passing. She finds the place in the dark. A glowing flame through oaken slats. She thuds on the door and waits…

 

A blackened form lay in the centre of the room. Tattered threads on remnants of shrunken leather skin, yellow teeth, empty eye sockets and long wisps of white blonde hair. A woman? The soft torch light revealed more. The arms and legs seemed too long; this woman would have been a giant, even among the tallest of Danes. Beside her was a silver knife, a small hand axe and a spangenhelm much larger than any Viking helmet Helen had seen before. Inside it there seemed to be a thick remnant of dark rust. Blood? She bagged a small sample. There were pieces of other skeletons in the room too, mostly animal. One skull appeared small but human. A baby?

 

She places the babe on the deer hide in the centre of the room. Afterbirth still clings to its matted hair and its mouth opens and closes in a contorted but silent scream. Hel, the daughter of Loki rises to tower above the two souls. She examines the strange body form, the lungs that have grown outside the body; they pulse and quiver in the firelight. The new mother offers a large amber bead, and breathes out the words. Hel, daughter of Loki, keeper of shadows, take away this darkness…

 

Scattered inside the chamber were various ornaments that seemed unrelated, and Helen was careful to bag and label them all separately before tucking them in her crate. Amber beads. Coins. A brass Thor’s hammer pendant. A bone comb and several whale bone needles. A rusted piece of chainmail. She marvelled over each item.

 

Hel stands and her shadow looms large as the fire gutters and fades. She offers the mother the blood-filled helmet and the woman trembles as she drinks in the blood of Odin. Hel’s hand forms an arc with the blade and in one swift movement she severs the pulsing pink lungs and throws them on the glowing coals. The babe twists and writhes and Hel leans close and breathes deeply. From the small body there seems to swirl a dark liquid smoke, an absence of light, and Hel throws back her head, opens her teeth and drinks it in. And the earth shudders and moans.

 

There was not much time before the last lift to the surface. Helen had worked methodically, documenting, taking samples, bagging artefacts and now she felt tired and heavy. She kept glancing at the tall skeleton with its empty eye sockets and web of hair. Removing a whole skeleton would be a delicate operation for another day.

 

Across the fen comes an old warrior with his eldest born son. Thor is angry with the young man, who in the heat of battle had gone mad and slain three of his friends, butchered them as if they were enemies. He had woken from the stupor with no memory of the event. The brothers of the fallen were sure to come this night, for revenge…

 

It was beneath an undisturbed pocket of dirt that Helen made her final discovery. She moved carefully, brushing and dusting it clean until she was certain she was looking at the bones of a large hand. The ulna and radius seemed to be sheared cleanly through. A strange find indeed.

 

Hel looms tall and her shadow grows gigantic as the fire gutters and fades. She offers the men the blood-filled helmet and they drink. The younger man trembles but the old man’s back is straight as he says the words. Hel, daughter of Loki, keeper of shadows, take away this darkness… She is swift and the axe severs the young man’s sword hand in a clean blow. As he howls and gasps, Hel opens her mouth wide and sucks at the dark smoke liquid that flows in place of blood from the man’s wrist. And the earth shakes and groans.

 

Helen wrapped the skeleton hand in cloth and tucked it carefully into the crate beside the baby’s skull. In that last moment the shadows seemed to grow thick and she shivered, glad to be leaving. As she crossed the threshold she glanced for a last time at the skull. The air in the room seemed to swirl and shift and for a moment she felt much older than her years and her body felt too heavy.

 

As she emerged, she gulped at the light. Her shadow grew tall and her blonde hair swirled and glowed. The crew had barely unloaded the freight when violent tremor shook the earth and the cavity below collapsed in on itself again.

 

 

 

 

 

Standard
flash fiction

The Small Things

Historical fiction story written for the finals of the flash fiction challenge in 2015 (featuring a bullet proof vest and an animal shelter). You can tell I was teaching WWI that year. I got an honourable mention- it came in 11th.

 

The Small Things

The evening news flickered muted blue light across Laura’s face. She sat next to her mother with a Great War textbook on her lap; history homework that she would never finish. The TV showed an aerial shot of an alleyway in Paris, gunshots, people running, and then cut to scenes of people crying, holding each other, laying flowers. France. She was learning about France, and all those lives lost in the mud and trenches. Her fingers flicked the pages until she found a map. France was shaped like a star.

 

Another news story made her look up. This time it was a tribute to a French police dog killed in the line of duty. There was a photo of the animal wearing a special bulletproof vest. She was curious.

 

“Do animals go to war? Do dogs?”

 

“Sadly, they do. You know you had a great, great uncle Alan who looked after horses in World War One, maybe even dogs. We have his old army kit in the shed. You might find something interesting in there.”

 

“Did he die in France?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Laura opened the shed door and dust swirled in the warm beams of sunlight. The room took a breath and the ethereal lace cobwebs quivered as she moved across the room. The A.I.F. kit bag was on the top shelf. She carefully removed each item: a leather bound shaving kit, scissors, a pair of threadbare woollen socks, a heavy woollen blanket folded neatly, a tattered photo of a young woman and lastly, a metal tin with what looked like a man’s thumbprint pressed into a smear of dried mud from a distant time and place. The metal lid was stuck fast, and Laura worked with keen fingers to loosen it. With a scrape it came off and she smiled to discover a little diary. Gingerly, carefully, gently, she lifted it out. In her hands it fell open to a page where a folded yellowing note had been placed. Carefully setting the note aside, she read that day’s entry.

 

 

Somewhere in France, 4th December, 1916

 

Yesterday it snowed for the first time. For a while the frozen mud was dusted white and looked clean and pure. Today it is raining and the heavy grey ice and slush taunts us like death. I’m not as unhappy as those sods at the front. They have me in a reserve trench, looking after wounded animals. I have made a moveable sheltered clinic from a horse cart and currently have care of three dogs and an injured carrier pigeon that I’m keeping in a wicker basket. It’s almost time to remove the bird’s splint- which is actually a matchstick! Two of the wounded dogs are known to our battalion. Rusty is a local breed and his thick coat makes us all jealous. He’s a trained sentry dog- he goes on patrol around secured areas and growls or barks when there is an unknown presence. He got his leg caught in some barbed wire last week, but he’s almost ready to go back to the front. A stocky mixed-breed dog we call Sergeant Sniffer has been with us for over a month. He was first seen running towards us ahead of a bitter green sea of mustard gas. He must have caught a whiff because he has a hacking cough like some of the men who were too slow to fit their masks. He’s a champion because he starts to whimper when he first smells the gas, and gives us fair warning before an attack. The heavy shelling last week took its toll and he could barely stand when they dropped him off, and couldn’t stop quivering and shaking. After some sleep and a few extra chunks of bully beef, I reckon he’ll be back to his old self. The third dog is quite a mystery. She’s a black German Doberman and was very disoriented when we caught her. She’d lost half her right ear and I removed some shrapnel from her back and hind legs. She is deaf, but hopefully this is temporary. She was carrying a small tin around her neck, like she was some kind of messenger dog. She growled at first but eventually allowed me to remove the tin and look inside, where I found a small note. I’m desperate to know what it says, but it’s written in German so I’ll have to get someone to translate it for me. For now I’m keeping the dog with me and have called her Jess. She’s lovely company and someone must be missing her; she curls up against my belly when I’m sleeping in my cot.  In three days we move out, not sure where, but I doubt we’ll get any reprieve from the cold.  I’ll certainly miss the warm sun, the fruit and the beach this Christmas.

 

It didn’t take Laura long to type the German characters into an online translator. As she copied down the words she felt a chill, as if the ghost of a scared German soldier boy was given life after almost a hundred years.

 

She joined her mother who was watching the late news. There was footage of a chocolate and tan German shepherd puppy being given as a gesture of solidarity from Russia to France. Ally to ally.

 

“I want to read you something I found in Alan’s diary. It’s a note from a German soldier.”

 

She held out the paper and with a trembling voice, finally breathed life into his words;

 

“I am not your enemy. We are not heroes for killing each other. I wish for peace this Christmas. Fresh snow makes me think of home- of fruit cake dusted with icing sugar, mulled wine and gingerbread- but all I have is watery stew and rye bread, and I know at home they go hungry. I wish that we could all be with family now, to enjoy the small things, because that is all there really is. War is the enemy.”

Standard
flash fiction

The Bear and Squirrel

I wrote this story for the first round of this year’s NYC Midnight Flash Fiction. I drew historical fiction, which has to be one of my favourite genres. My object was a rope and the setting had to include a seized plot of land. This story came to me very quickly as it instantly made me think about post-revolutionary Russia and the subsequent famine in Ukraine after collective farms were introduced. I had just come off the back of teaching the Stage 6 Modern History national study of Russia, and it was cool to be able to use some detailed historical knowledge to write a piece of fiction.

This is a sobering little story. I used the colours of the Ukrainian flag – the blue of the sky and the yellow of the grain- as a motif. As it was less than 1000 words I used the three part structure; three subsequent years to show the progression of the plight of one Ukrainian farming family. I didn’t know how this story would be received- I felt my tone was a bit contrived- but in the end I placed at the top of my heat. Enjoy.

 

The Bear and the Squirrel 

There is an old Ukrainian folk tale about a squirrel and a bear. The bear ignores the squirrel and brushes him aside. When later the bear is caught in a trap, the squirrel chews through the tangle of rope. Even though the squirrel is small and weak, he saves the life of the mighty bear.

The bear is Russia. The squirrel is Ukraine. The year is 1930.

 

*****

 

There is a sound that wheat makes when the breeze blows in late autumn and the grain is groaning on the stem; a soft sweeping whisper. The fields had turned pale yellow as if the wheat were a golden belt separating the black loam soil from the endless blue of the Ukrainian sky. Katya had been cooking all day and had prepared a large loaf of bread to bless tomorrow’s harvest. The kitchen was filled with the smell of sweet and sour soup, pickled vegetables, smoked pork sausage and potato dumplings. Outside the window she could see her two boys. Artem was sharpening a scythe, always dutiful and planning ahead, but the younger boy Alex had draped a red scarf across his chest and was pretending his rake was a shotgun.  ‘Comrade Alex’ she called, ‘the revolution can wait until you’ve been fed. Call your father.’

 

In the lamplight Katya noticed how strong the boys had become and how much the younger looked like his father Ivan. The family ate slowly in silence out of respect for the food, for family. Their neighbours the Solvetsky’s had packed up and left their farm one night, convinced to move onto a collective farm. A team from the kolkhoz had come and harvested the Solvetsky’s wheat a few days ago and Katya had watched the strange mechanical harvester. In the past it had been old Solvetsky and his boys, using scythes, with the girls following behind with twine to tie the bushels. It felt as if the ripples of change were finally reaching them from Moscow. ‘Papa…we aren’t going to join a kolkhoz, are we?’ Ivan frowned at Alex and shook his head.

‘No. I hope not.’ Katya felt her breath catch in her throat and she studied her husband’s face.

‘You hope not? I thought it was optional.’

‘They say it’s optional. And then they come in the night and ask you again.’

 

The boys began to hear stories from the neighbour’s children, of people refusing to hand over grain and livestock, of one man who made a stand and was shot in front of his wife and daughters before they were put on a train to a labour camp. The wheels of revolutionary reform kept turning and a few boldly coloured posters started appearing around the village. In one, men and women laboured side by side in the field under a glorious Ukrainian sun, and behind them were rows of barns in the style of the kolkhoz. There was a growing expectation that all men had to carry the motherland towards prosperity. Stalin’s first five-year plan was to drag Russia out of the dark ages, with a focus on heavy industry, and grain was the only commodity the country had to sell the world.

 

A year later the soft swish of ripe grain on the stem swept across the night-time landscape, but this time it was peppered by the cries of sheep, pigs and cows being slaughtered. It hadn’t taken long for the kolkhoz farms to become full, as they were increasingly seen as the only option. More farmland was swallowed, amalgamated into collective farms, and more machinery replaced manpower. Farms were ravaged, livestock herded off, granaries plundered for a dwindling supply of seed. As production targets increased the people grew hungrier and people were by the communists as too many mouths and bellies to feed. Families chose labour camps only over a bullet to the head, and the reports from the camps were grim. Shrinking skeletons, starvation and the very depths of human depravity lurked in the frozen shadows of the camps and Katya, curled against Ivan’s warmth in the weak light of early morning, made him promise never to take them there.

 

The meal that night was extraordinary. The boys ate so much meat that their bellies bulged and Alex could barely move from the table. Usually when Ivan slaughtered an animal they helped make sausages, or salted the meat before air drying as a means of preservation and to flavour a year’s worth of soups and stews. This time the animal carcasses were slung up and their blood dripped out onto straw in the barn. The boys were directed to drag all the sacks of seed grain and potatoes into the barn as well, along with jars of pickled vegetables and jams, every skerrick of food they had left.  Katya had Ivan construct an outdoor fire pit where she roasted a leg of lamb and both of the suckling pigs. A chicken stew bubbled on the stove inside and a crudely carved lump of steak sizzled in a pan for Ivan. When would they taste meat again?

After the meal was finished the family said their farewell. At midnight the barn fire gave off the defiant scent of burning fur and charred grain and something almost intangible; the smell of burning memories, play, happiness.

 

*****

 

This year, the feast had been replaced by famine. The heavy blue sky of the Ukrainian flag searched for the golden band of yellow ripe wheat, but was met instead by a landscape of broken dried stems and clods of dried earth, as if the crust of the earth was peeling back to reveal to reveal so many skeletons. Yet still Russia rushed towards progress, more hungry than the people she had forgotten to feed.

Standard
flash fiction

The Human Zoo

This historical fiction story was inspired by the Paul Kelly song Rally Round the Drum  about an Aboriginal man who was a travelling tent boxer. I wanted him to be the main character in my own story and have him travelling with the circus but returning home to Kokatha country in South Australia. I’ve always been interested in very early Australian migration and that horrid era of human history that was all about gawking at human ‘curiosities,’

 

The Human Zoo

At first they appeared like irregular blisters on the horizon. The procession moved so slowly that no one knew when it changed from mirage to something tangible. The red dust and lingering heat swirled around the fluid shapes of the figures, the animals, the carts. The leader seemed so elongated that his top hat reached the sky and his legs looked like spindle-sticks, barely able to carry his weight. As they drew nearer it was clear that he was leading a troupe of three camels that rocked and swayed along the dirt track. Behind him a smaller man rode a grey Asian elephant. Then came three horse drawn wagons with heavy curtains to conceal the identity of the occupants, then came more people, some on horseback, others on foot, and bringing up the rear were three slow moving trucks, all featuring the same yellow logo, ‘Wirths Circus’ and in smaller lettering ‘bare-fist boxing tent’ and  ‘Australia’s only human zoo.’

 

Yesterday it was a patch of red dirt and saltbush, but today the red and yellow bunting announced that the circus had arrived. The exotic spectacle bloomed like a pocket of desert wildflowers. In the centre was the big top and around it were smaller tents and an assortment of animal cages; a Bengali tiger paced ceaselessly up and down, a green parrot squawked and attempted to stretch its wings inside a cage that was too small and a monkey, tethered to a stake, attempted feverishly to pry itself free.

 

Kid Snowball was nursing an injury to his knuckle, but that didn’t dampen his mood. He was used to this hard end of a tough game, and he enjoyed his title as bare-fist boxing champ. But today he was finally back on Kokatha home country, country of the dreamtime serpent Akurra. It had taken a whole year of touring but he’d finally come home. He smiled at the thought of the sacred healing springs, the bush tucker and most of all, his people. Most nights his fights were fairly easy to win; a drunk white bloke would cough up the dough to fight a wiry little black man who proved too quick. Sometimes he copped hate and matched up against men who wanted to kill him, but mostly the fights were over quickly, usually when he landed a stinging double jab to an unsuspecting brow or chin. Kid Snowball could take a fair bit of pain, but most of his opponents could not. His plan tonight was to vanish after the last fight and return to his tribe. He was done with the boxing tent.

 

Crowds of people flowed in from the morning onwards, but it wasn’t until the ringmaster lit the flare at nightfall that anyone was allowed inside. People enjoyed the spectacle in the Big Top, the horses, the trained dogs, the proud but obedient elephant; but it was the human zoo tent that was proving most popular, especially for its newest curiosity. There had been many inhabitants in the last few years- a bearded lady, a few dwarves, and a Chinese ‘princess’ who displayed a pair of tiny deformed feet that she had been binding since childhood. Last year Wirths had even captured a Palawa, a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman and had touted her as the last of her tribe. She was fierce, but her people had spent 10,000 years on an island and she had taken ill with a white fella’s fever from which she never recovered. It was Snowball who had been charged with burying her in the dust of a foreign homeland. He cried salty tears for her and refused to eat or fight for a week.

 

When his final bout was over, Snowball was drawn one last time by the candle glow of the human zoo tent. Identical twin girls were dressed in identical frocks and played patty cake. An old man reclined on a cushion and the flickering light revealed a pair of knobbly horns just below his hairline. He had a few words in broken English and told the audience that he was ‘an offspring of the devil himself’. But it was the giraffe-necked woman that everyone had really come to see, and that Snowball wanted to say goodbye to. She sat upright, unmoving. Around her elongated neck were twelve brass rings and she wore a traditional green tunic. Her black hair was swept into a high bun which accentuated the exotic tilt of her head. Wirths were pretty tight-lipped about where their curiosities came from, but it was rumoured that she was of the Kayan people, captured at gunpoint from a jungle in Burma. The only possession she had with her was some sort of carved doll and Snowball felt sick to think that she may be a mother. Tonight she looked weak and her eyes were glassy. He gently touched her forehead and his hand recoiled from the heat of her skin. She was burning.

 

If he hadn’t been on home country, Kid Snowball might have let nature take its course, he might have had no choice but to let her die. But here he knew the plants, the healing places and he knew how to find the Kokatha medicine man.  He waited for a long time until the crowd was gone and even the restless monkey was asleep. He crept on silent feet to where she lapsed in and out of consciousness.

 

She felt ghost-light in his arms as he carried her into the desert and comforted her in his language. In the morning the only sign that they had been there was a broken doll’s head. And when the shapes of the circus faded into the haze, the land was busy composing a new history: of the famous homecoming of Kid Snowball and the giraffe-necked woman who joined the Kokatha tribe.

 

Two years later, three more Kayan women disappeared from Wirth’s Circus and after a lengthy investigation, the circus were forced to close its human zoo.

 

 

Standard
flash fiction

Marella

For this flash fiction story I lucked out and was assigned romance- a genre I don’t read…or write. The object was a locket and the setting was a nursing home. These prompts made feel very tired all of a sudden but I plugged away at my story. I built the story around food and memory, which I felt comfortable doing, and consequently I didn’t have to spend much time on the ‘lovey’ part. The judges really liked this one.

 

Marella

Every morning it was the same. The strawberry jelly was pale and thin and melted to sugar water in her mouth. The apples were stewed for too long and with too much sugar, and they held none of the tartness she longed for. Marella sighed and wriggled her toes in weak protest. Her firm bed was a long way from the spring orchard of her youth and her feet in heavy socks could barely remember the sensation of dew-crisp grass. She had spent so many years alone in this place that being alone had become who she was.

Lunch was another beige feast. Cardboard luncheon meat, pale corn kernels, the muted red-browns of three bean mix and a splodge of grainy potato salad. The little dining hall was a long way from the red cedar table at the back of their favourite pub where she would meet him and they would devour smoked bacon soup or relish the vinegar sweetness of a crisp pickled onion with bread and sharp crumbly cheese. She would eat him with her eyes as they drank mugs of warm Guinness followed by slow malty kisses. But he was long gone now, and she had not been able to follow him so easily to the grave.

In the evening the orderly wheeled in another insipid offering. A plastic plate kept warm under a matching plastic dome. When she lifted the lid, watery condensation ran in rivulets back onto the waterlogged beans, carrots and thin gravy that drowned a quiver of grey meat, long dead. She longed for their days of courting, midnight feasts by firelight, exotic spices, strange vegetables and strong red wine. She would watch his fingers and tongue as he sucked the marrow from the bones. They would drink Turkish coffee, short and sweet, and talk until the orange dawn cracked open a new day. Now the days were interminable.

The new chef caused quite a stir with some of the residents of Coronation Terrace. The men, for the most part, did not like his effeminate countenance, his long womanly fingers or the fact he wore a round silver locket around his neck. The women simply did not know what to make of the young man. Marella was fascinated by his youth and the light way he seemed to spring about as he introduced himself. She thought he smelt like spiced peaches and clean washing. She was not ready for the intense feeling of warmth she felt when he held her hand between both of his and looked her in the eye.

That night she dreamt for the first time in a long time. She floated to a numb and comfortable place where two new lovers were wrapped in a feather quilt, drinking smoky single malt scotch and making those whispered pledges, those ethereal building blocks for a life together. She was restless when she woke and refused to leave her room. She loved him, she needed him, and he was gone. She would often go without food when she was feeling like this and her cold longing would last for days before she let someone shove some nourishing slop between her lips. But today the new chef delivered the breakfast tray to Marella’s room himself. Her body didn’t move but her eyes following as he moved around the room. He touched his hand to his locket.

“There’s a secret spice inside this locket.” She raised an eyebrow. “Promise me you’ll try your breakfast…”

When he had been gone a long while, Marella gently bought the tray closer. It looked as if bubbles had become trapped in the citrus jelly cup and beside it two apricot halves glowed like an impressionist painting. When she lifted a weak spoon to her tongue, she was transported.

It was the toast on their wedding day. He looked nervous, his hand trembled as he held the stem of the glass and a light sweat glistened on his top lip. When he looked at her, everyone else in the room faded to a blur. The room shifted and settled, leaving only the two of them. He looked into her eyes, his mouth moving in a gentle rhythm, matched by the heavy slow beating of her heart.

“To us.”

For lunch the chef bought a soup of spring vegetables, just like the one she made fresh from the garden on their first anniversary. She’d cut everything so small that it barely needed cooking- beans, fennel, peas, leeks and sweet white-purple spring onions- and she’d lifted the flavour to heaven with a sprinkle of lemon thyme.

Marella was growing tired now, but she waited for the evening meal with a deep longing. When he bought the plate to her room she inhaled deeply and was swept back to Sri Lanka where they travelled on their first overseas holiday. White rice, oil-dry crisp pappadums and a saffron- red curry perfumed with cardamom, cloves and cinnamon. The scent had lingered on her clothes, her hair and on his lips. The tang of pineapple sambal, the dark salt of dried anchovies, and the smoke of dried chilli paled against the passion of their lovemaking as the silk curtains stirred in the haze of the late afternoon.

When the chef came in for the last time, she felt so content that it was only a gentle flutter of her eyelashes that acknowledged his presence. He left the offering of Turkish delight and closed the door behind him.

There had been so many roses at his funeral; white, yellow, red, pink. On the day she had been mute, a shell, a whisper lost on a howling wind. She had shut herself away as the flowers faded and the pinks and reds turned brown and withered, her own life shrinking on the stem.

She finally let herself taste the scent now, the delicate rosewater, and she opened herself at last.

 

 

 

 

Standard