flash fiction – LOUISE PIEPER

Join the queue

Have you been busy? My month has whizzed past in an increasingly chilly blur, but before it skitters off entirely I thought I’d post a 500 word story I wrote at the start of the month, for the AWC’s Furious Fiction.

I’ve missed the last six of the monthly writing challenges so I was determined to do this one. The requirements were that the story had to begin in a queue, include the words cross, drop and lucky, and include a map. Err…. my mind was a perfect blank and then the only thing that entered it was…

The 17th Letter

“Don’t you think it’s ironic?”
“No,” Queenie said, “it’s really not.”
She hunched her shoulders against the wind and sighed. Two metres away, Qiana rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, but no,” Quentin insisted. He shuffled closer, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, size 14 running shoes taking up more than a fair share of the lane’s narrow footpath. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, I do,” Queenie said. “And no, it’s not.”
She took an ostentatious step back and wished the lane had those little green crosses on the ground to mark a safe space. It was too cold to be doing the social distance dance, too cold to be waiting in this wind tunnel for one of the twins to unlock the door and start the meeting.
“But you can’t know,” he protested.
“It’s my mutant superpower,” Queenie said. “It’s what a lucky thirteen years of teaching has made me.”
“Psychic?” Doctor Quimby looked up from his book, although Queenie would have sworn he was paying no more attention to them than to the weather.
“Psychotic, maybe.” Qiana grinned.
“Three hundred and sixty-five ten-year-olds have drawn me a comprehensive road map to juvenile humour and I can predict a bad pun at –” Queenie said, but Quentin ignored her.
“Isn’t it ironic,” he said, “that we have to queue to get into the Q Support Group?”
“No,” Queenie said, “It’s typical. Qasim and Qamar are always late.”
“But –”
“And it’s only irony where the expectation is deliberately opposite to the actuality.”
“And we’re not really queued,” Qiana said. “More… clustered.”
She edged away from Quentin with a smile that wouldn’t have embarrassed a shark.
“It is, technically, a queue of Qs,” the doctor conceded.
“A tautology then.” Queenie shrugged. “But a tautology with an irony deficiency.”
She straightened as someone stopped at the end of the lane. Bundled and bulky in a heavy coat and scarf, she couldn’t make out any of their features. Their glasses reflected the streetlights as they scanned the lane and then started forward.
“Newbie,” she murmured.
“Conspiracy theorist?” Qiana suggested. “Like the last four?”
“Or a James Bond fan,” Doctor Quimby said, “looking for Q Division.”
Both were more likely than a genuine member. Few peoples’ names started with Q and even fewer wanted to socialise with others who shared that burden. Qasim was probably right: ‘support group’ sounded too needy, but they’d voted down Quentin’s suggestion to rename the group ‘Q Tips’.
“Are you the Q people?” The figure stopped a considerate distance away and took off the glasses, revealing an elderly Chinese face. “I am Qiang.”
“Hi.” Queenie smiled. “We’re just waiting for the key.”
“Ah, unfortunate. It’s this wind.” He shuddered. “I really need to…”
He stopped, blushing.
Queenie raised her hand.
“Don’t say it,” she warned, but Quentin ignored her.
“You know what the alphabet says: you’ve got to P before you Q.”

And there you have it – flash fiction, or really just a smidgen of juvenile humour, to close out the month.

Sorry.

My nice banner image of a queue is a free to use StockSnap from Pixabay.

Feeling lucky?

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Or if not lucky, at least in the mood for some fiction…

The Australian Writer’s Centre sets the Furious Fiction challenge on the first Friday of the month and writers have 55 hours to write no more than 500 words. This month the goal was: 1) start the story with a two word sentence, 2) set it in a supermarket and 3) have something breaking. You can read the winning and shortlisted entries on the AWC website.

Here’s my 500 words:

LUCKY’S
‘No Credert.’

That sign makes me twitch every time I walk into Lucky’s Holesale Supermarket. Don’t worry, the ‘holesale’ bugs me too, but at least the rusty ghost of a ‘W’ is visible on the corrugated iron. The other, hand-written, sign is taped to the back of the cash register.
First time I saw it, I swear I flinched.

“Listen,” I said to the woman leaning on the counter. “That’s not how you spell credit.”
The badge on her blouse said her name was Shirl.
Shirl said, “I know.”
“Then…” I gestured at the sign.
She looked at me through ice-pale, unblinking eyes.
“Some people like to have something to complain about.”

I thought about turning around and walking out, but I didn’t want to burn my bridges too early. The next nearest shop was the petrol station six blocks away and they charged like wounded bulls. I was renting between a sprawling industrial estate and a fetid, snake-filled swamp. I’d need my bridges when that damn swamp flooded.

So I nodded, grabbed a trolley and headed into the first aisle.
It was like no supermarket I’d ever seen. Industrial shelving lined one wall of a big, ugly warehouse and most of the floor space was taken up with water-damaged pallets. Perched on top were boxes of loose-leaf liquorice tea.

Three litre jars of dill pickles.

Blood pressure monitors.

Packs of toddler training nappies.

Tinned brawn.

Souvenir spoons.

Cheap, sure. But none of it made sense.
At the end of the aisle the stink of rotting seafood slapped me. Four chest freezers stood reeking against the hot corrugated iron. A sloughed snakeskin fluttered, caught on the wheels of the nearest freezer. I gagged and swore.

“Silly, isn’t it, putting them against the western wall?”
An old lady emerged from the next aisle, clutching a wire basket which held three tins of baked beans and a blood pressure monitor.
“I never buy their fish,” she confided, “but that’s not why we come here is it?”
“Why do we come here?” I was genuinely curious.
“Because one day we’ll find what our heart desires.”
She sighed, smiled and drifted into the next aisle.

Mad, I figured.

I was halfway down aisle two, digging through tinned beans for the extra cheese variety, when I heard her cry out. I pushed between pallets piled high with toilet paper and novelty lawn ornaments, sending a ceramic panda crashing to the floor.
“Are you alright?” I gasped.
She held something against her chest which lit her face like she cradled a star.
“I am now. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
She sailed off towards the checkout, leaving me to push pieces of broken panda under the pallet with the side of my shoe.

“Got what you want?” Shirl said when I wheeled my trolley up.
“Uh, sure.” I gave my gleanings a dubious look.
She cracked a slow smile and said, “Maybe next time.”
Maybe.
I guess that’s why I keep coming back to Lucky’s.

All that is needed

FF-JUNE-PROMPT-1024x683 On the first Friday of each month the Australian Writers Centre runs a 55 hour 500 word writing challenge called Furious Fiction. It’s furious fun! June’s writing prompt was an image (extract above – see the full image and the winner and shortlisted stories here).

The first thing I saw was a face in the window. So, here’s my 500 words worth:

All that is needed
The room is a symphony of light and symmetry. Marta steps back from the table and I lean forward. I would press myself against the glass if I could. I would draw close and closer still, a moth to the room’s bright flame.

She nods once, affirming perfection, and tugs the cloth from her belt. Transformed from menial to hostess, she opens the door.

Two waiters hurry in, hired so Marta can enjoy herself. They look young and rumpled in borrowed suits. The freckled one darts a glance at the window and I shrink back into shadow, but no doubt he only checks the bottles of wine on the sill.

The guests follow. Sebastian and Elisabeth. Arthur, immaculate. Charles, messy as ever. His bow-tie sits askew and a lock of hair waves like a parrot’s crest. Sybille and Frances whisper secrets. Fiona casts venomous glances at her cousins’ dresses, their heels, their effortless chic.

Grand-mère claps her hands at all Marta has wrought. Her diamonds catch and scatter the light as she turns, admiring. I feel her gaze pass over me and her smile dims. But she presses her powdered cheek to Marta’s, murmuring praise.

I don’t know the other five. Friends? Colleagues? One is a redhead in a tight dress which hugs her curves, snug as whipped cream. Sebastian admires her and thinks Elisabeth doesn’t notice. Two dangerous men, sleek as jungle cats, in their dark suits and matching ties. Another man, attentive to a middle-aged beauty in an emerald sari.

The women flutter, bright as butterflies, finding their places. The men settle like sombre moths beside them. Their chatter fades and they turn to raise their glasses to the guests of honour.

Teddy stands in the doorway, a pirate in a three-piece suit. For a moment, he is all I can see. He smiles at the room but his gaze avoids the windows. An ice queen clings to his arm – diamonds on alabaster skin, white dress and ash-blonde hair. She looks cold but not as cold as me. Then she laughs and pulls him with her to the window.

Her face is inches from mine. She doesn’t see me.

“What a view you have,” she exclaims, “although we’re only, what, five floors up?”

Against the wall, the waiter pales beneath his freckles. Does he see behind the reflection of blonde prettiness is a dark-haired girl looking in from the other side of the glass with eyes like coals?

Teddy doesn’t see me. He never really saw me. He went on with his life and left me here, pinned like a specimen fixed to a board. The windows are old and heavy enough to break the spine of anyone incautious enough to lean out. Although someone would have to release the sash cord.

It wasn’t the fall which killed me.

“To absent friends,” Marta says and raises her glass to me.

Everything is perfect. Everyone is here. And I am the ghost at the feast.

Flash fiction* – Taskforce Z

They come in the night.

They always do.

You wake, blinking against glare. Sunlight shouts off the white plastic shroud which encases your neighbours’ house.

You stand at the window, your fingers splayed on the glass like a gecko’s translucent pads. Your gaze traces the line of the temporary fencing to the front barrier, where a pale blue banner is attached to the metal mesh.

You can’t read it from your window, but you know what it says. You have seen dozens like it, scattered across the suburbs. The government insignia is white, and so are the words – Viral Response Taskforce.

First the plastic. Then the droning whine of the generator as it pumps in the decontaminants. Later, the demolition team will scrape the site bare, leaving a gap in the street like a missing tooth.

There’s no sign of the neighbours.

There never is.

*Another Tiny Treasure I wrote for Noted Festival. This one won’t have the same resonance away from Canberra, which currently has lots of houses like this – although it’s the Asbestos Response Taskforce at work, removing the houses which were insulated by “Mr Fluffy”. Creepiest name ever…

Flash fiction* – Autumn Witch

autumnwitch

She preferred maple leaves of fiery orange and yellow, or heart’s blood red. Sometimes, she found a perfect bruised purple leaf, veined with red-gold arteries.

She placed them all on her wide, white windowsills, for the sun to dry. Their memories of moisture evaporated, and they became brittle and bitter. As they baked, she seasoned them with regret.

No more dancing in the fresh breezes of Spring. No more whispering through Summer’s lazy heat. They crinkled, arthritic and crabbed, as she crooned to them of lost vitality, and stolen joy.

By the time the trees were bare, she had an army of clawed furies, which her winds could send to do her bidding. Their desiccated hearts yearned to scratch at tender flesh, and spill the hot blood which might, she promised them, be as sweet as the sap they remembered.

*Last week I mentioned writing some flash fiction for a Tiny Treasures event at Noted Festival. I thought I’d share my pre-prepared tiny stories here, rather than have them whirled away and lost, like fallen leaves…