short fiction – LOUISE PIEPER

The Apocalypse? It’s not all bad

2020 was not the year for writing grim apocalyptic fiction.

Well, not according to me anyway. If that’s the jam in your jelly roll… okay, I’m not judging. You do you, Boo.

Nevertheless, ‘Apocalypse’ was the theme for the 2020 CSFG / Conflux short story competition that I wanted to enter. No. That I wanted to win – because I was so very pleased when my creepy little tale of an archivist and a skin-bound book won last year’s competition.

So, it was just a matter of writing my way into an apocalyptic story which wasn’t unbearably grim. Simple, right?

Step 1 was the opening lines of Lord Byron’s poem Darkness:

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space…

Alright, still a little grim, but cut the guy some slack – it was the Year Without Summer so pretty gloomy all round. Anyway, I liked the idea of a dream which was not all a dream.

Step 2… I thought about making a character who had been born on the 10th of August 1997. Why? Because according to Aggai, the Bishop of Edessa in the 1st Century, that was when we could expect the Antichrist to be born and the end of the world to begin. Errr… still a bit grim, I suppose.

But… step 3, there were lots of apocalyptic theories for 2012, which would make someone born in 1997 just 15 years old and that could be fun…

Inspired by a dash of Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic and a pinch of Maggie Stiefvater’s Blue Lily, Lily Blue (Book III of the Raven Cycle), I came up with the Delangeur women who foretell the future by various means – cartomancy, ailuromancy, augury and scrying – and Molly Delangeur, a teenager who dreams of the end of the world.

I just needed to set it in a small hinterland town, surrounded by dairy farms, so I could lighten the tone with an apocalypse cow, a cash cow and the sort of cheerfully cheesy, regional festival that rural Australia does so well and I had my story – Herding Cats.

And the really great thing?

It won the CSFG / Conflux 2020 short story competition, and you can read it here, on the Conflux site, along with the apocalypse stories The Cusp by Kathryn Gossow and Yestermonth by Tim Borella.

Let me know what you think – still too grim or did it make you smile?

(The apocalypse cow banner image was cropped from a photograph by Cally Lawson on Pixabay.)

Rocking that dress

Wake of a boat - image from AWC September writing challenge

With a writing prompt like that picture, you’d think it would all be clear sailing, right? Well, maybe it’s been too long since I had a holiday but I couldn’t conjure blue skies and an idyllic ocean. Instead, I wrote something which valiantly tries to put the fun back in funeral.

As it turned out, that was fine.

While my persistence hasn’t actually paid off – I did not, after all, win the cash prize – I am pleased to say that my 22nd entry into the monthly Furious Fiction challenge from the Australian Writers’ Centre did manage to get longlisted.

The challenge for September was to write <500 words in 55 hours, inspired by the boat image, with a first word that began with the letters SHO, and included the words SCORE, SLICE, SPRINKLE, STAMP and SWITCH (or plural or past tense variations).

Here’s mine:

That Dress

“Shoddy coffin.”

For one awful moment Chloe thinks Liam’s going to rap his knuckles on the wood in the funeral equivalent of kicking a car’s tyres while you’re talking the salesman down.

He leans closer to the corpse, frowning.

“Reckon Bec remembered to switch Auntie Maeve’s diamonds for paste? These are pretty bling.”

She nudges his elbow.

“Respect, Liam, we’re supposed to be paying our respects.”

He shrugs. “Chill, love, Auntie Maeve won’t mind.”

Her black high heels pinch her toes as she tries to think of something nice to say about his great-aunt other than that the old lady made a great pavlova.

“Is that the same outfit she wore to our wedding?” Liam says.

Chloe has been trying not to look at the body. It seems indecent, somehow, to have the top half of the coffin propped open. She’s only been to two other funerals and in one the coffin was so covered in flowers you could have mistaken it for a florist’s counter. The other was a memorial service, with just a portrait on an easel.

She lets her gaze slide up the side of the admittedly cheap-looking pine box, glance over the ruched satin lining and bounce off a slice of turquoise blue dress just visible under a bouquet of lilies. She takes in the other details in a rapid series of ocular jerks, like she’s playing a macabre game of pinball and doesn’t want to raise her eyes to see how close she is to the high score.

Or, in this case, to another glimpse of Auntie Maeve’s unnatural, lurid make-up.

“Yes, same outfit.”

Chloe reminds herself not to speak ill of the dead, especially when you’re right next to them.

Liam shakes his head.

“The one that looked like she’d just tangoed off the set of ‘Dancing with the Stars’?” he says. The sides of his mouth hitch up. “The backless one?”

“That one,” Chloe growls, since no bride wants to have her wedding dress upstaged by their groom’s octogenarian great-aunt, but no-one had known that Auntie Maeve had celebrated her eightieth birthday by getting a tramp stamp tattoo… until she wore that dress.

Liam grins and starts waving his hands around.

“Seriously? With the plunging neckline and the big frothy white fishtail flounces, and the faux pearls sprinkled all over it? How did they fit the damn thing into the coffin?”

Chloe swats one of his hands and says, “Don’t be mean. She said it reminded her of cruising the Greek islands: the blue ocean, the white foam behind the ship.”

“Perfect dress for a wake then,” he says and laughs.

The play’s the thing

The line between comedy and tragedy can be pretty thin and my latest piece of flash fiction crosses it. I’m not entirely convinced that’s a good idea in a story of less than 500 words. But I’m hopeful that the foibles of the fascinating world of theatre, particularly at the amateur dramatics end of things, are well enough known that the comedic aspects don’t need explaining.

And the tragedy?

Well, ghosts have been part of human folklore since antiquity, so I don’t think that needs too much explaining either, especially in relation to Shakespeare.

* and speaking of Shakespeare, that banner image is cropped from a photo I took of the Zombie Macbeth cast promoting their show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2006 *

There were three requirements for the AWC’s May Furious Fiction challenge:
1. The first word had to be ‘five’,
2. Something had to be replaced, and
3. The words ‘the/a silver lining’ had to be included.

You can follow the link to find the winning and shortlisted entries and to sign up for notification of the competition, which happens on the first weekend of each month: you’ll have 55 hours to write a <500 word story that meets the criteria announced at 5pm on Friday. It’s a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy Shakespeare and Spirits:

“Five fathoms deep thy father lies –”
“It’s not –” Avita said and Zoe grabbed her arm.
“I’ll just stop you there a moment, er….” She checked her clipboard. “Miles.”
On stage, the actor frowned and peered at them across the lights.
“Is there a problem?”
“It’s ‘Full fathom five’,” Avita said.
“What?”
“Just a couple of things, Miles, sorry to break in so early,” Zoe said, hushing her assistant. “Avita’s right, though, Ariel’s song starts ‘Full fathom five’.”
“Well,” he huffed. “I think I caught the gist of it.”
“Yes, but Shakespeare –”
“I mean,” he went on, “there’s alliteration and then there’s just showing off. Anyway, if you insist.”
He flung out his right arm and declaimed, “Full fathom five thy father lies. Of his bones –”
“Miles!” Zoe pinched the skin between her eyes where a headache had wormed its way into her skull. Seven auditions and this was the last.
“What?” said the actor.
“We’re not auditioning for Ariel,” Zoe said.
“Yes, but –”
She spoke over his protest.
“In fact, we’re not auditioning for The Tempest.”
“I know that,” he said. “But you can’t expect me to read from the Scottish play.”
“But we’re auditioning for the Scottish play,” Zoe said, looking away from Avita whose jaw had dropped in disbelief. “We urgently need another Banquo.”
“And why is that?” he demanded. “Because the curse of the Scottish play fell upon you.”
Avita’s mouth snapped shut and she surged to her feet. Zoe caught her wrist.
“Our Banquo died of a heart attack during dress rehearsal,” Zoe said. “There’s no curse.”
“I think you’ll find,” the actor said, putting his hands on his hips. “that the curse is very well documented.”
Zoe released Avita’s wrist and let her stalk towards the stage steps.
“Yeah, well, thanks for your time today, Mr Carr,” Avita said. “I’ll just see you out.”
As her assistant bundled him off stage, Zoe repeated, softly, “There’s no curse.”
“What, can the devil speak true?”
Her head jerked up. There were no more auditions…
Something flickered like a figure in an old black and white news reel beside the curtains to the downstage wings. Dressed for the first act, their Banquo stood on the spot where he’d died.
“Connor?” Zoe said.
“All’s well.” He lifted his pale gaze to her. “I dreamt last night of the three weird sisters…”
Light caught the edge of his tunic, a silver lining that flared like touchpaper and consumed his strangely celluloid image. Zoe shook her head. A ghost.
She didn’t believe in ghosts.
“Unbelievable,” Avita said, coming back onto the stage. “That’s all of them gone. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know about you,” Zoe said, “but I really need a drink.”

Celebrities? Get me out of here!

gold tiles

‘A’ list, ‘B’ list, reality TV list – who can keep up? I swear I can read a list of celebrities appearing somewhere or the other and not recognise a single name. Is this something to be proud of, or a reflection that our notion of celebrity has gotten out of hand? I’m confounded by the interest in every banal detail of celebrities’ lives and by their symbiotic need to feed the beast of media ubiquity.

So why am I writing about them?

The blame can be laid at the feet of the AWC’s Furious Fiction writing challenge for November, which required <500 words in 55 hours which:

had the first and last words an anagram of each other, and
included the phrase ‘there were eleven # in the #’ and
an interpretation of five emojis (a zipped mouth, a moon, a pair of scissors, a handshake and a cobweb).

Emojis? I don’t ‘do’ emojis, darling! And then, to quote the delightful Mrs Lovett, ‘you know me, bright ideas just pop into my head’.

I hope you like my petulant celebrities, appearing now in ‘A List‘:

“Three?” Theo Fitzclarence leaned towards the show’s host and shook his head. “I wish, Max. I’m afraid there were eleven people in the marriage.”

The studio audience gasped, laughed and clapped as the host’s jaw slow-dropped in his trademark facial move.

“You mean…?”

Fitzclarence raised the hands that had played the chords that had sold a million downloads for his alt rock band, Cake Scissors, and started counting them off.

“Me. Taniya. Her stylist. Her make-up artist. Hairdresser. Personal trainer. Personal assistant. Social media assistant. Two security guards to look after Cha-Cha and Biscuit…”

“The tea-cup Pomeranians?”

“More like tea-cup terrorists.”

Laughter as the cameras zoomed in to capture Fitzclarence’s sneer.

“You think I should have included them in the count? Maybe you’re right.” The musician scraped one hand across his stubbled jaw. “It was never about us. Even when we were alone – rare as that was – Taniya would be snapping selfies and tweeting about ‘quality couple time’.” He grimaced. “Her social media adviser said she got the most re-tweets when she tagged me and the band. I was just a prop to her promotion machine.”

The audience sighed their sympathy, but the host waggled his fingers.

“Your count comes up short,” he said. “That’s only ten.”

“Only?” Fitzclarence raised a derisive eyebrow, then looked away, jaw firming, thick dark hair falling over his eyes. “I don’t think I can talk about number eleven.”

Max wriggled in his seat, eager as a puppy begging for a treat.

“Come on, Theo, I won’t tell.”

He mimed zipping his mouth closed, then batted his lashes at the close-up camera.

Fitzclarence kneaded his fist against his chest.

“Nah, man. All I can say is his name starts with a C.”

More gasps and a drawn out ‘ooooh’ from the host made the musician smirk.

“You work it out,” he said.

“I’ve never been good with puzzles.” Max played to the audience. “So I thought we’d better go straight to the source.” He flung out his arms. “Let me present – fresh from her star turn on Broadway – Ms Taniya Webb!”

The studio lights dimmed and a spotlight picked her out, seated on a dazzling crescent moon, descending from above with a rain of golden glitter. The statuesque Webb high-kicked her diamond heels and blew kisses to everyone except Fitzclarence.

“Max, darling,” she said as he helped her off the swing.

“Now, if I can’t convince you two to kiss and make up, you can at least shake hands,” he said.

Webb lifted one exquisite dark shoulder and pouted over it.

“I don’t think so, darling. Theo’s a sweet boy, but it seems he can’t quite count. I make it at least seventeen in our marriage… with his groupies.”

The audience applauded as she tapped the host’s dropped jaw closed then patted his cheek.

“I’ve just tweeted about it,” she said. “You can read all the details there.”

A real fixer-upper

Librarians believe in Ranganathan’s five rules which include for every book its reader and for every reader his or her book. I don’t know if there’s a similar rule for real estate agents and houses, but one thing is for sure – it’d be very hard to write the sale blurbs for some properties.

With that in mind, here’s my 500 word story for the AWC’s Furious Fiction challenge for August. This month the requirement was to include the following adjectives: “shiny, silver”, “cold and greasy”, “scratched and weather-worn”, “sweet and pungent”, “ink-stained” and “shrill, piercing” and one of them had to be in the first line.

Fixer-upper

Screwed to the gate post are three shiny, silver numbers which make everything behind them look shabby. Unfortunately, behind them is the house I’m supposed to sell.

I hope the owner’s niece doesn’t expect a miracle.

I cram the hatchback between the lilac bush busily devouring the driveway and the scratched and weather-worn fence. The old house crouches beside a main road and its blistered, sun-ravaged face stares down the barrel of another busy street.

Bad Feng Shui.

I sigh and write off eighty-six percent of potential Asian investors right there.

Two steps from the gate and I’m nosing the warped front door.

No yard, no privacy.

Inside, the sullen curtains in the front windows cast the bedrooms into gloom. I write off ninety percent of young families, too.

Street noise, stranger danger and random, passing perverts peering through your bedroom windows.

I cross to the side window and eyeball the house next door. It’s so close you could lean out and shake hands with the neighbours. I wonder if they know what happened, if the owner’s niece contacted them, like she contacted the realty, gushing words down the phone: ‘Aunt Winnie broke her hip. She can’t live there alone. Good thing she was here when she had her fall. She’ll have to sell.’

I touch the windowsill and my fingers find scratched letters where a blister of paint has peeled back to reveal childhood’s vandalism. Winnie Warden. Miss Winifred Jane Warden. Winnie Andino. Mrs G. Andino.

Suddenly, it’s not the shrill, piercing voice of Miss Warden’s niece in my head, but Lissa’s smoky, whiskey brogue. She lounges on tangled sheets, twisting her dark hair around ink-stained fingers, telling me about Cathy and Heathcliff and doomed love.

I snatch my hand away. I don’t believe in ghosts. Or love.

I stride down the linoleum-slick hall, glancing into small, grim rooms. Bathroom. Lounge. Dining. The kitchen cabinets cluster together as if they don’t trust the Formica table or the lace-shrouded windows.

No benches, no dishwasher, no bloody hope.

I drag open the cold and greasy bolt on the back door and fight the fly-screen to get outside as fast as I can. I’m three steps down the path before the sweet and pungent scent hits me and I stop and stare at a garden paradise.

Forget the house. This I can sell.

Can I help you, love?” a voice asks.

I spin around. There’s a man standing in the rose arch between this garden and the equally gorgeous one next door. He’s old and flamboyantly camp, but he’s quick. He sees the realty logo on my shirt and asks sharply, “Is Winnie alright?”

“Who are you?” I blurt out.

“Her neighbour.” He puts out his hand. “George Andino. Tell me she’s alright.”

“She broke her hip and can’t live here alone.” I echo Miss Warden’s niece.

“She won’t be alone,” he says. “I’ve been her best friend for sixty-two years.”

Lissa was right. It’s doomed love, no sale, and a miracle.

Democracy sausage

an Australian democracy sausage obtained at a sausage sizzle on polling day

We came, we saw, we ate our democracy sausages and the results of last Saturday’s federal election are mostly in – it looks like it’s business as usual. My social media feeds are full of angst and ennui, fear and frustration. All I can offer in response is a little furious fiction…

The story had to include the words MAYBE, MAYHEM, DISMAY, MAYOR and MAYONNAISE.
The story’s first word had to be an 11-letter word.
The story, at some point, had to include someone or something RUNNING.

As usual, you can check out the winning entry etc on the AWC website and read on for my <500 words worth.

Democracy Sausage

“Sausonomics? Sausnography? Come on Tash, help me out here. Sausocracy?”

Jason turned the bread-wrapped, charred meat product over and held it aloft.

“The democracy sausage! Something we all believe in.”

I groaned. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Something we all agree on.” He grinned. “That’s important.”

“Rare as hen’s teeth,” Reg said.

“But it’s not even true.”

‘It’s an alternative fact.” Jason shrugged.

“What about vegetarians? Vegans?”

“There’s always outliers…”

“Foodies? People with taste-buds?”

“It’s what the sausage represents that’s important, Tash. It’s a unifying political symbol for the disillusioned masses.”

“You can’t have a sausage run for parliament.”

“Agreed,” Reg said.

“Right. That would be madness. Mayhem…” Jason’s grin widened and a diabolical gleam lit his eyes. “Someone else does the running with the democracy sausage as our mascot.” He drew in an exultant breath. “We start a new political party!”

“You are not calling it the Sausage Party.”

Reg choked on his beer.

Jason started pacing.

“S.A.U.S. – serious, superior, special Aus – nah, an acronym won’t work.” He stared at the offending object in his hand. “The Banger Party!”

“Just, no.”

“Wurst Party?” Reg said. “Wiener Party?”

I face-palmed.

“The Savoury Party.” Jason swept the sausage in a wide, banner-like arc and across again for the by-line. “Sweeet!”

“Mixed messages.” Reg shook his head.

“All things to all people,” Jason shot back.

“Lot of policy decisions to make. Onions or not?”

“Onions.”

“Above or below the sausage?”

“Can’t ignore OH&S, mate.”

“Fair enough. Sauce?”

I stared from one to the other in dismay. It was like watching a ping-pong match between two juiced-up meerkats.

“Definitely sauce.”

“What kind?”

Jason frowned. “Serious issue. Potentially divisive.” His eyes flicked, as if he was weighing up arguments. “Tomato sauce,” he declared.

Reg rumbled dissatisfaction. “Barbeque’s a serious contender, mate.”

“What about mustard?” I suggested, fed up with their nonsense. “Maybe a bit of sauerkraut?”

“Have to be locally produced,” Reg cautioned. “Section 44.”

“Sure,” I said. “Better embrace diversity and chuck on some marmalade and mayonnaise.”

“Come on, Tash,” Jason said, “get real. It’s gotta be tomato. Other condiments just can’t ketchup.”

He held it together for a beat, then they both started cackling like maniac chooks.

“Politics is serious,” I protested.

“Not really.” He eyed the sausage. “We’ve got an Elvis impersonator as our mayor, they’ve elected a comedian to be president of the Ukraine, and the Cheeto P.O.T.U.S. is a bad punchline to a terrible joke.”

“Okay,” I said. “But how many people do you seriously think would vote for a sausage?”

Reg sucked air through his teeth, like he was doing the numbers.

Jason took a big bite of his democracy sausage, chewed thoughtfully, and grinned.

“All we’d need is nineteen votes and a preference deal for the Senate,” he said.

Walk in, walk out

laundromat-1

I could cycle through the laundromat puns, maybe even spin them out, but it’s probably better to get on with the story and see what comes out in the wash…

March’s Furious Fiction challenge from the AWC was <500 words, with a setting inspired by the above image and a theme of curiosity. You can read the winner and shortlisted stories here.

I didn’t really hit the theme, but I was happy with my story: Walk In, Walk Out.

“Check it out!”

He stops in the middle of the footpath, wrenching my arm. It hurts, but it’s a fleeting pain. Not like the tightness which presses on the top of my chest as I recognise his gleeful tone.

He puts his hands on his hips, tilting his chin as he reads the sign taped to the shopfront.

“For sale. Walk in, walk out. Going concern. Imagine it, Jules.”

It’s an effort to keep my voice neutral. My blood pressure kicks up and anxiety presses down like a weight around my neck.

“It’s a laundromat,” I say, because I have to say something or be accused of not wanting to talk about what he wants to talk about, or having no curiosity, or being negative.

“Always demand for a laundromat in a tourist town.” He presses his nose to the window, cupping his hands at the side of his face to cut out the glare. His breath fogs the glass as he adds, “Neat little place. Kind of retro.”

That means dated. I don’t bother peering in. I can see enough through the wire-meshed security glass. Old and tired, half the machines probably broken, a–

“Great little fixer-upper,” he says, beating me to the not-funny punchline. “Imagine it. We could live here, cheap as chips. Run this place. Grow our own veg, keep a few chooks. The good life, hey?”

“Yeah. The good life.”

I drag in a breath, struggling to get enough air into my lungs. It tastes of grease from the fish and chip shop next door and exhaust fumes from the snaking queue of traffic heading for the beach.

“No big overheads. Set our own hours. It’s perfect, love.”

He rubs his hands together as if it’s all sorted, so I catch hold of his elbow and nudge his arm. He starts walking again and I breathe a little easier.

“Regular servicing, of course,” he says. “No money in machines that don’t run.”

A giant fist crushes my lungs.

I gasp out, “How do they work?”

It’s exactly the right thing to ask. He talks about electric motors the whole way home and I don’t have to say anything until we reach the front desk.

“Here we are,” the nurse says, taking his other arm. She raises her eyebrows at me and mock whispers, “How was he?”

“Fine. He was fine.” My breath catches as I press my lips to his bristled cheek. “We’ll go for another walk tomorrow. Alright, Dad?”

Everyone loves a list

B18mantel

Woah! It’s the end of January? Already?

I hope all those new year lists you wrote (resolutions or bucket lists or to do lists) are looking good and you’re ready for February. And what better way to kick it off than with a creative writing challenge?

The Australian Writers’ Centre will be running their monthly Furious Fiction this weekend – log in at 5pm tomorrow for the prompts and you’ll have 55 hours to write and polish 500 words to be in the running for $500. You can check out the January winner and shortlisted entries to get an idea of what they’re looking for.

Last month’s requirements were:

the first word had to be ‘new’
it had to include the words ‘desert’, ‘nineteen’ and ‘present’
it had to include some kind of list.

Here’s my 500 words worth…

THE LIST

“New shoes and new stockings. New unmentionables.” Princess Araminta’s lady-in-waiting smothered a giggle before continuing her list. “New petticoats for Your Highness, and a new gown, new cape and new crown. Everything you need.”

“To be a freshly-minted Minty? Wonderful.” The princess gestured to keep her attendants at bay. “Wait here for me.”

Skirts hoisted, she took the tower steps two at a time. List upon list for her Forecasting Day but not the one which mattered most. She was supposed to leave that one to politics and her father’s discretion and trust that time would sweeten their choice.
Well, there was no time like the present.

She bolted the heavy door and all but fell against the wall, palms pressed to the stone on either side of a large, gilt-framed mirror.

“Morgan,” she panted, “have you the list?”

Her reflection swirled like dirty water down a drain. A clouded face looked out, as if someone peered through a window coated with soap.

“Of course I have it, darling,” the mirror said. “Nineteen unmarried princes.”

Minty clasped her hands together, grabbing onto hope. “I only need one.”

“Yes.” Somehow the mirror drew the word out until it sounded more like ‘but’.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“Four of them are old enough to be your grandfather and seven more have children.”

She bit her lip. “That’s not–”

Morgan cut her off. “Three of those are drunkards, two are diseased and one is an inveterate gambler.”

“And the seventh?”

“Prince Lothier has eight sons under the age of ten.” Morgan chuckled. “He’s had twenty-seven nannies in the last year and hopes a wife will prove a more permanent minder.”

Minty shuddered. “Eight then.”

“Two are from Upper and Lower Aureas.”

“Oh dear.”

“If I have it right, darling, Prince Zender is Prince Olver’s first and second cousin and his uncle. They both have the Mictivberg chin, I’m afraid.”

Another shudder shook the princess. “Six?”

“Prince Nimon is very keen on macramé, Prince Blaubard’s five previous wives all inexplicably disappeared, Prince Tirth–”

She raised her hand. “I’ve met Tirth. He talked about the average rainfall in the different regions of Verum. Prince Hal?”

“You know he’s nicknamed for his bad breath? No? Good Prince Vox is a paragon of virtue and a moral–”

Minty’s laughter drowned out Morgan’s words. “No and no,” she gasped.

“Prince Herac of the Panjan Desert is attractive, with a good sense of humour–”

“Perfect!”

“And four years old.”

“Morgan!” She frowned. “That’s all?”

“I suppose there’s also Clauv. He’s technically a prince, since his father is the Pirate King of the Patchwork Islands.”

“A pirate?”

“Young, handsome, fond of dogs, witty and well-read… It’s a shame you can’t swim.”

“I can learn.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. “Action and adventure! He’s exactly what I want!”

“He’ll need to attend your Forecasting Day. Make an offer…”

“Oh, that’ll be easy.” Minty grabbed her summoning bowl.

Morgan raised one shadowy brow. “That’s what they all say, darling.”

Micro fiction*: On Valas Rock the Seals Cry

“The sea was all he had and if he couldn’t escape it, he’d die.”

* Ah, selkies! I love them so. I wrote a short piece for a Gamma.Con story competition which had to be under 800 words and sci-fi or fantasy. I didn’t make the shortlist of ten (you can read them here), but I was happy with my tale.

So happy, in fact, that I revisited, reworked, and significantly expanded the piece and entered it in the Heroines Anthology #4 in 2022. Which is why the body of the original short has been removed. Fingers crossed for a good outcome for the reworked piece “When Seals Cry”.

Save

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…