AS FATHER - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - JULY 2023

It's been a while since I wrote and posted a short story, so here's one I wrote back in July for the Australian Writers' Centre Furious Fiction contest. It's an experiment with a different style. Terse, serious, not my usual smart-arse approach. I took an immediate dislike to the contest's prompts. I felt like it was leading submissions down a mawkish, sentimental path. So it inspired me to push hard in the opposite direction and as far away from a contrived, saccharine childhood memory as it would take me. The idea came quickly, easily and somewhat belligerently,  as they sometimes do, and I enjoyed writing this one a heck of a lot. With the right idea percolating, this is a style and an approach I'm keen to revisit.

In addition to the 500 word maximum and a three day window to write it, the criteria were: 

• Your story must include a CHILD (16 or younger) as its main character.
• Your story’s first sentence must contain two colours.
• Your story must include the words BUMPER, PRIZE and IMPOSSIBLE.

Father fell in a puddle of red and grey and did not get up. The Bearded Men carried the tatters of him home. The People stood aside and bowed their heads as they brought him through the Great Gate and up Wisdom Hill to the Keep. 

    Mother cried out when she saw them approach. She said she had seen it in the stones. She closed her doors and went to sleep that night and did not wake up. There was noise and screaming and the Bearded Men looked at me and spoke in loud voices to one another. They said it was IMPOSSIBLE. They said there was no other choice.

    I stood upon the ancient, granite cliff top with a BUMPER of ale in hand, the copper taste of fox blood in my throat, as archers set my parents’ bones aflame. Their ash as one with our ancestral seas.

    The Bearded Men said Mother and Father had been called to God but I did not hear God speak. The Bearded Men set a crown upon my head. They said it was my PRIZE of birth. The Bearded Men said I must rule, as Father. They said it was God’s decree but I did not hear God speak. 

    The Bearded Men said our enemies in the north would come, and come they did. They saw our land as soft and ripe for picking, as summer fruit. I sat in the Round Hall with the Bearded Men. A fire burned in the hearth. Acrid smoke pillared to the heavens, as my parents’ funeral pyre. With tears in their eyes they asked me if I chose acquiescence. But if I was to rule, as Father, I chose war.

    The enemy raided our lands with savage incursions on our sacred earth. But the People were steadfast and repelled them with hatred. They could not be broken. For every step the enemy gained, they lost one in return. The war years were of attrition.

    After five cycles, our neighbours to the East brokered an accord. I stood in a tent with our enemy. A ferocious man who wore the skulls of his own sons as trophies. A terrible man who made his generals quake. A blind man who called me child. I drove a knife into his throat. They did not expect this from one so young. And when I ate my enemy’s heart I was a boy no more.

    My enemy’s commanders fled. I usurped their lands as my domain. From mountain peak to valley floor, there was prosperity. The People received me in rapture. The Bearded Men praised the Will of God. But still I did not hear God speak. 

Perhaps I am God?

WRITERS VICTORIA - FLASH FICTION APRIL 2022

 As with the last two years, April marked the Writer’s Victoria daily Flash Fiction Challenge. The purpose is to write a 30 word short story, based on the daily prompt and once again it was good fun with the Twitter writing community being as inventive and supportive as ever. This year, I did not manage a story every day. COVID-19 threw a spanner in the works, which was not fun. But I was also working on a longer short story, two pieces of other writing and my day job at the same time, which meant a few days got missed. On the final day, for the first time since I started doing this in 2020, I flat out could not think of an idea! 

All the daily winners can be found at the Writers Victoria website here:

https://writersvictoria.org.au/flash-fiction-2022/

Collected here, are my entries for this year’s contest. Twenty three tales of spiralling doom, unrelenting morbidity and deviant science. Where lycanthrope dentists run amok, where interstellar capitalism ruins lives (just like real capitalism); where Necromancers forget their instructions and Santa is a litigious bastard.  So prepare yourself, traveller. Open your mind to the strange and the weird. Cross the cosmic threshold and feast on the twisted, corrupted wonders inside…

HINT – 1 April 2022

With hindsight, I ignored the hints: no appointments on a full moon, suspicious allergy to silver, killed all those sheep. I just never thought my dentist could be a werewolf.

PYRITE – 2 April 2022

As instructed, I gripped the lumpen nugget of pyrite, focussed on my energy centres and closed my eyes tight. When I opened them, he’d stolen my tent… and my dog.

GLOW – 3 April 2022

Our interstellar visitors stepped from their glowing spacecraft, and were immediately electrocuted in the light evening drizzle. Apparently, beings of pure light and energy do not react well to water.

FORTUNE – 4 April 2022

Earth soil is worth an absolute fortune on Klebmar. Goddamn space millipedes keep digging it up to sell on Space eBay. All I can do is leave ‘em bad feedback.

IDOL – 5 April 2022

The pentagram was drawn, the candles lit and the sacrificial blood spilled across the transdimensional portal. We were awaiting The Traveller, when we realised… Trevor forgot to bring the idol.

INTERMITTENT – 6 April 2022

Space Slug control need not be unpleasant. My advice? Lean into it. Initially, loss of free thought will be intermittent, but soon enough your mind will go ‘full gastropod’

BRIGHT – 7 April 2022

Earth-17 underwent Planetary Relocation because their Sun was (apparently) “too bright.” They were re-orbited around a gas giant, but immediately complained it was “too stinky.” Rich people are never happy.

MOON – 8 April 2022

“Dry your tears Timmy. Remember, when you look up at that moon tomorrow, even though I’m not here I’ll be doing the same thing… right before I blow it up.”

PERCEIVE – 9 April 2022

“Despite my name, bone fide invisibility is patently impossible. I simply ‘persuade’ your brain you can’t see me. And Marketing just felt ‘The Unperceived Man’ wouldn’t test well.”

TWINKLE – 10 April 2022

Your honour, counsel agrees my client’s eyes ‘twinkle’ delightfully. However, his belly does not shake ‘like a bowl full of jelly’ and we will be seeking damages to that effect.

SEQUIN – 11 April 2022

The Fancy Killer, who terrorised the city for months, was finally apprehended when a single sequin from his bedazzled strangling gloves, was found in the gullet of his final victim

SHIMMER – 12 April 2022

The lake shimmered in the afternoon sun. Family picnics buzzed with spring optimism. Birds sang. Children laughed. Until the bloated, toothless corpse of an unidentified state witness breached the surface.

ALTAR – 13 April 2022

Most other cults spend all their money on expensive altars, forgetting you can’t summon a Goat Lord on an empty stomach. That’s why we always budget well for apocalypse catering.

HORIZON – 14 April 2022

We were stationed near that black hole, which we couldn’t see, because no light escapes. It took us two months to realise the event horizon was in the opposite direction.

SUBDUED – 15 April 2022

He thought Bigfoot was subdued, but he never got the full three count. He surprised him with a double suplex, pinned him and Bigfoot was crowned World Sasquatch Wrestling Champion

OASIS – 16 April 2022

Human brains are succulent. Of the billion minds we have subsumed, they are an oasis. My larva thirst. They will find water here. Humanity’s parched consciousness scattered to the void 

DAPPLE – 17 April 2022

As his face became dappled with the fluorescent buboes of the Martian Plague, there was nothing left to do other than admire the terrifying beauty of a toxic universe. 

BLINK – 19 April 2022

On your first day as an interstellar zookeeper you must establish dominance. Stare the creatures down. Blink first and you’re liable to get your throat torn out by Space Gerbils

HOPE – 23 April 2022

They said you can’t put a price on hope. But we wrote an algorithm to simulate hope in robots and it sold quite nicely. The price of hope is $99.95

SPARKLE – 25 April 2022

The Fancy Killer got the chair but crime scenes across the city continued to sparkle. His valet continued his work. Turns out, for once, the butler actually did it.

SOFT  – 27 April 2022

He went soft in his later years. Acquiring a conscience. Muttering regrets about making people cry. But we never forgot. He was the most thrilling Evil Hypnotist in the business.

FLASH  – 28 April 2022

Weirdly, I felt the strike first, then I hit the ground, THEN I heard the thunder. Also weird: the smell of your own flash fried skin is kind of chicken-y.

EYE  – 29 April 2022

Interviewer: Mr Cyclops, what would you say is your biggest weakness?

Mr Cyclops: Most people assume it’s having one eye, but actually, I can’t do maths without a calculator.

Missed Days

18 April 2022

WAVER – 20 April 2022

GOLD – 21 April 2022

SCINTILLATE – 22 April 2022

INKLING – 24 April 2022

NEON  – 26 April 2022

GLIMMER – 30 April 2022

THE BIG SCORE - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - MARCH 2022

This is my March 2022 entry for the Australian Writers’ Centres Furious Fiction contest. It didn’t do anything in the contest, but I don’t really care about that. What’s important is that I found a stupid idea and wrote something I’m really pleased with. 

In addition to the 500 word maximum and a three day window to write it, the rules for March: 

·         Your story must include a character that commits a crime.

·         Your story must include some kind of DOOR being opened.

·         Your story must include the words CHALK, TALK and FORK.

It’s 8pm and I’m parked opposite a warehouse on the bad side of a bad city. It’s a bad environment, squared. The rain is beating out some crazy jazz on my rooftop and I’m washing down antacid tablets with stale coffee. I got a peptic ulcer and a telephoto lens for company.

Name’s Frank Chisel. I got an ex-wife, a shitty mortgage and half-pint of Jack Daniels stashed in my glove box. I got a badge and a gun and the right to use deadly force if I catch you with over 50kgs of Dutch Creams. That’s right, I’m a P.I. - Potato Inspector.

Governor Patterson got elected on a ‘tough on crime’ platform. Every archaic law gets enforced, everywhere. Excessive potato possession began in WA, but blighted the whole country.  Agricultural Syndicates ruin lives and strangle cities.  I’m flying solo tonight. My partner, Jenkins, is in the hospital. Took a bullet busting up an illegal Farmer’s Market. Three days off his retirement. That poor bastard.

Warehouse roller door slides up with a noise barely audible over the downpour. Dark blue hatchback idles down the driveway. Lotta trunk space. chalk it up to experience, but that’s an immediate red flag. A kid exits the car – he’s a skinny beatnik with a mangy beard - and I spot all the evidence I need to stop and search. In the corner, almost hidden by the door… a fuckin’ wheelbarrow.

I hit the gas and put my sled between the kid and the road. Roller door snaps shut. He’s got nowhere to go. Kid’s cocky and thinks my XL waistband means I’m all lard, but a couple of friendly one-twos dissuades him of that notion. Kid flops to the ground and surrenders his keys and I pop the trunk. A hatchback full of illicit tubers. I grab my fork, cut a piece and taste. It’s good shit.

“This is uncut Australian Pontiac. Know what that means?”

Kid looks up from the floor. Cracked ribs starting to hurt. Cracked pride hurting him more, he says nothing.

“Means, you’re growing ‘em. Not importing ‘em. You’re looking at a big stretch. Sing it now, or forever hold your peace.”

Gotta hand it to him, kid’s still got fire in his eyes. He invites me to do something biblical with my mother and my fists politely decline. Kid spits a mouthful of teeth onto the pavement. He ain’t talking.

I slam the hatchback – equal parts frustration and intimidation tactic - when something falls from the underside. A small, green cylindrical object rolls slowly across the floor and comes to rest perfectly between the two of us. I look at the seemingly innocuous vegetable and then back at the kid… the fire in his eyes has just gone out. A wry smile grips the corner of my mouth. I pop another antacid and grab my radio.

“It’s Chisel – get me the Chief. This case just blew wide open. You better get the Zucchini Squad down here, right now.”

 

CONVENTIONAL BOREDOM - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - NOVEMBER 2021

This is my November entry for the Australian Writers’ Centre's Furious Fiction contest. Not much to comment this month, other than it's nice to put the story up here and give it a place a place to live. Steered away from my usual sci-fi / horror weirdness for a change and had a spot of bother coming up with a title, which I still don't love. Otherwise, I like this and I hope you do too.

In addition to the 500 word maximum and a three day window to write it, the rules for November:

• Your story must include someone PACKING A SUITCASE.
• Your story must include the phrase “ACROSS A CROWDED ROOM” (as dialogue or narrative).
• Your story must include the words CHARM, CRUSH and FAINT.

The presentation was a joke. ‘The Beginner’s Guide to Optimizing your Synergistic Business Agility,’ it was called. Which as far as I can tell, means absolutely nothing. I sat across a crowded room, where on stage an overconfident man with some fancy Powerpoint slides, but not nearly enough charm to be doing this for a living, packed and re-packed a suitcase in order to illustrate a crude metaphor for decision making at work. At least, I think that’s what it was. I’d kind of tuned out by that stage. I think his beach towel was supposed to be the workforce, and his sunglasses were the upper management. I forget what the point of the espadrilles were. All I really got out of it was that the man knows how to pack a bag. And ‘good luck to him’ is what I say. It’s a good skill to have. Nobody likes to pay extra to check luggage on a flight. 

I wasn’t even supposed to be there. But my colleague, Margaret, was blowing up balloons for her dog’s birthday (also called Margaret… don’t ask), got lightheaded, fainted and sailed down a flight of stairs, where she selfishly broke her coccyx. My boss, Mr Donaldson, informed me I was taking her place at the boredom conference.

But I’m trying to be more of a ‘glass half full’ type person. Find the best in a situation. That type of outlook. So as the speaker continued to drive his metaphor into the ground, I stole a glance around the room and you know what I saw? I saw a lot of opportunity. Oh yeah, I probably should’ve lead with this: I’m a thief.

It’s not like I’m some common criminal.  I’m just really, really good at it. If any kids are out there right now, hoping to get into thievery, let me give you one word of advice. Practice. A concert pianist plays every day. An Olympic athlete trains every day. I steal every day. You have to hone it to perfection if you want to crush it and be the best.

So as the presentation came to a close and the assembled, bleary eyed throng rose to its feet, as if roused from a comforting nap. I used the moment to slip on stage. While the presenter was disentangling himself from his microphone wires, I lifted the suitcase in my left hand and walked out the door like I owned the place.

I took a bottle of wine from behind the bar as I left and not one person tried to stop me. I’ll spend the rest of the afternoon on this beach, lying on the ‘workforce’ and shielding my eyes with the ‘upper management’. Still not sure what those espadrilles are meant to be though.

 

 

BAKED - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - SEPTEMBER 2021

This is my September entry for the Australian Writers’ Centre's Furious Fiction contest. Posting on my blog again so it can live forever. I've always found it hard to get my head around the idea of contests and awards for creative pursuits. So although it would be a lie to say I don't want to win (because who doesn't like to win things?), the honest goal is only ever to write something that I like. And I like this.

For the contest there is a three day window in which to write a 500 word story, in addition to which the following rules must be observed:

• Your story must include EITHER an attic OR a basement.
• Your story must include some kind of insect.
• Your story must include the words EARTH, WIND, FIRE and WATER.

    This used to be a nice street, you know? Mowed lawns, picket fences, the whole nine yards.  We used to joke it was like that neighbourhood in Edward Scissorhands - so close to perfect it was almost a parody.

     But then Jesse moved in. He devastated that street like a gale force wind. Where once there was tranquillity, there was now chaos. In one afternoon my quiet existence was shattered, like the garden gnome his moving truck broke. He was the Godzilla to my peaceful Tokyo.

    Over the next six months his terrible music at 3am, daily drum practice and the conversion of his front lawn into what I can only assume is a Thunderdome, shredded my every last nerve. I tried talking to him, hell, the whole neighbourhood did. He just smirked and claimed he had the right to do what he liked. But I’ve always prided myself on doing the right thing, leading by example. So in the spirit of rising above it, of being neighbourly, I decided to bake Jesse a cake.

    I closed the door behind me and descended the creaking, wooden staircase to the lower reaches of my house. The bakery itself was pretty nondescript. What do you want me to say? It’s got four walls and a concrete floor.  I installed the benches myself though, and the wall mounted terrariums. The hive’s myriad tunnels scratched through the earth like a central nervous system. As beautiful as a painting. The climate control system kept everything watered and the temperature regulated. See, when you’re baking a cake it’s important to use premium ingredients. And I wanted my ingredients to be large and agitated and swarming when I released them into Jesse’s house.

    The roaches were first. They bred quickly and in stunning numbers. I am a good baker. I rigged a delivery pipe to connect my basement to his. It was actually quite simple.  For one blissful week, the music stopped, the noise abated and my street returned to solitude while the house was fumigated. But as soon as Jesse returned, so too did the clamour of his existence. So the Fire Ants were next, and then the wasps.

    But Jesse kept returning. He has so far, I suppose, been the most unkillable pest of all.

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS - FURIOUS FICTION - AUSTRALIAN WRITERS' CENTRE - AUGUST 2021

This is the short story I wrote for the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction contest in August. As always, I like to post these up here to give them some form of existence. 

I hadn’t written fiction in a little while, due a combination of focussing on other writing projects and Melbourne lockdown malaise. The last couple of stories I wrote ended up being a bit of a chore, and inevitably, I wasn’t happy with them. But I’m very happy with this one. It was fun to write and it fell into place easily. And that’s the feeling I’m chasing when I write anything.

The rules:

• Your story’s first sentence must contain only four words.
• Your story must include something being shared.
• Your story must include the words PAINT, SHIFT, WAVE and TOAST.

    You pull up outside. The car is a real rust bucket. Dented rear end, flaking paint, broken CD player.  But it’s nondescript, has four wheels and a full petrol tank. It will do a job. It’s 8pm. The last shift ended two hours ago and the place will be empty.

    Three people exit the backseat and approach the building. They wear boiler suits and woollen balaclavas. It’s thirty degrees and ninety percent humidity. The car smells like a locker room. The two in front crowd around the third as he futzes with the lock. If the alarm gets tripped you have ten minutes, easy, until the cops arrive. Private security is another matter. They’ll be here in three, but rent-a-cops don’t have the resources. Any half competent driver can evade them. The head figure nods at you before they move inside. You wave back in acknowledgement. You’re all on the clock now.

    Getaway driving isn’t easy. The movies glamourise the profession. Every hot shot with a fast car and a faster attitude thinks he can do it. Walking around with a hammer in his back pocket and toothpick poking out the corner of his mouth, like a right dickhead. Or blasting a mix tape so loud he doesn’t even hear the cops until he’s got a boot on the back of his neck and a face full of asphalt.

    There’s a skill set - inherent to doing it well - that involves much more than driving. You need patience, observational skill and good planning. There’s a lot of spontaneous decision making, but also a lot of sitting around. A lot of musty, hot, stinky cars. A lot of close environments, shared with the sort of terminal loser who thinks the world owes him.  Every one of ‘em a degenerate gambler, betting everything on their own deluded ego.  No sense to get out while they’re ahead, so the longer they keep coming back for more, the smaller their options get. Every one of ‘em headed for a box in the ground or a prison cell.

    The other thing the movies always get wrong is the dramatic escape. People getting shot on their way out, cops lying in wait, and so forth. But if events go off book, the drama happens inside. Always. You hear a dull thud. Might be a gunshot. Might be a cabinet tipping over. All you know is, they’ve been inside nine minutes and thirty seconds, which means they’re toast.

    So you drive to a deserted car park underneath the river bridge and set fire to the rust bucket. You walk half an hour to a train station on a different line and go home. You broke your only rule. You agreed to a share this time. Always get paid up front because, as the 11 o’clock news informs you, your share is sitting in that building in a pool of blood, among the bullet ridden remains of three gamblers who forgot to check for a security guard.