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    Behind the Wattles
    Behind the Wattles
    Behind the Wattles
    Ebook214 pages3 hours

    Behind the Wattles

    By David Vernon

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    Slowly, the hole grew deeper as he found his rhythm. Dig, swing, dump. Dig, swing, dump. His laboured breathing synchronised with the turning of his shoulders; dragon’s breath in the morning chill. He was grateful for the wattle trees enshrouding the lower garden, for they shielded him from prying eyes while he undertook this grimmest of tasks. Sunlight slanted through silver leaves and splashed upon her corpse, which was gaily wrapped in a floral curtain he’d found in the garage.
    “Would she like those colours?” he wondered, without irony. He had no idea who she was, only that he’d awoken to discover her lying still and cold beside him in his bed.
    — from "Behind the Wattles" by John Poole

    When the rain began, they had rejoiced. The parched ground had drunk the first few inches greedily. But, like the story of Noah, the water had continued to rise, subjugating the land. It had pushed up and out, consuming everything in its path like an insatiable monster. At first, it had been fun spying the remnants of lives floating past: a tank, an old fridge and even the decaying body of an old ute. But even after the rain had stopped, the water continued to rise until it began to creep past the fence and into the yard. There were frantic phone calls, furniture lifted, power turned off. Reports came in that the bridge — the bridge that never flooded — was going under.
    — from "Roadside Tragedy" by Catherine Cooper

    Fifty-six flash fiction and twenty-one microfiction stories feature in this anthology of cunningly clever, award-winning stories from the Stringybark Flash and Microfiction Awards. From murder mysteries to goldfish and World War to pavlova, well-known and emerging short story writers demonstrate their skill in weaving compelling tales in fewer than one thousand words.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Vernon
    Release dateNov 10, 2012
    ISBN9781301709021
    Behind the Wattles
    Author

    David Vernon

    I am a freelance writer and editor. I am father of two boys. For the last few years I have focussed my writing interest on chronicling women and men’s experience of childbirth and promoting better support for pregnant women and their partners. Recently, for a change of pace, I am writing two Australian history books. In 2014 I was elected Chair of the ACT Writers Centre.In 2010 I established the Stringybark Short Story Awards to promote the short story as a literary form.

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      Book preview

      Behind the Wattles - David Vernon

      Behind the Wattles

      Seventy-seven award-winning stories from the

      Stringybark Flash and Microfiction Awards

      Edited by

      David Vernon

      Selected by

      Antoinette Merrilees, Julia Robertson, Jamie Todling and David Vernon

      Published by Stringybark Publishing

      PO Box 851, Jamison Centre, ACT 2614, Australia

      http://www.stringybarkstories.net

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright: This collection, David Vernon, 2012

      Copyright: Individual stories, the authors, various.

      These are works of fiction and unless otherwise made clear, those mentioned in these stories are fictional characters and do not relate to anyone living or dead.

      Discover other titles by David Vernon at Smashwords.com:

      The Umbrella’s Shade and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award

      Our Name Wasn’t Written — A Malta Memoir 1936 - 1943

      Between Heaven and Hell and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Flash Fiction Award

      A Visit from the Duchess and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Speculative Fiction Award

      The Bridge and other stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award

      The Heat Wave of ’76 and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Erotic Fiction Award

      Marngrook and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Australian History Short Story Award

      The Road Home and other award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award

      Into the Darkness — One Australian airman’s journey from Sydney to the dark skies over deadly skies over Germany — 1939-1945

      Between the Sheets and other stories from the Stringybark Erotic Fiction Award

      Tainted Innocence and other award-winning stories from the Twisted Stringybark Short Story Award

      Yellow Pearl — eighteen stories from the Stringybark Australian History Awards

      Seven Deadly Sins and other stories from the Stringybark Seven Deadly Sins Award

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this editor and the authors of these stories.

      Contents

      Introduction — David Vernon

      The Coffee Drinkers — Beverley Fitzgerald

      Cutting — Graeme Simsion

      Rainbow Misconnection — Margie Riley

      Increments of Fear — John Scholz

      The Morning After — Jennifer Shapcott

      Packenham to Melbourne — Diana Thurbon

      I’m Still Here — Jessica Lye

      Lunch — Peter Bishop

      Hindsight — Holly Bruce

      Number Twenty-Four — Barbara Stackpoole

      Getting By — Maggie Veness

      Liebesleid — Vanessa McKinley

      There was a Man — Candice Graham

      The Perfect Pav — Penny Gibson

      The Return of Hope — John Scholz

      The Butcher Boy — Katinka Smit

      Will it Hurt? — Lucille Francis

      iParadise Lost — Martin Lindsay

      My Best Friend — Helen Rogan

      Soldier — Beverley Lello

      1910 — Graham D’Elboux

      The Nightly Stalker — Elaine Ross

      Maxie — Gayle Beveridge

      Common and Minor — Mark MacNamara

      The Rip — John Scholz

      Behind the Wattles — John Poole

      Tuesdays — Alexis Hailstones

      The Boxes — Michael Wilkinson

      Slim Hope — Michael B Fletcher

      Look to the Sky — Paul Williams

      Shark Games — Candice Graham

      And Things Stood… — Peter Bishop

      The Question — Kerry Lown Whalen

      Better You than Me — Elsie Johnstone

      The Wave — Holly Bruce

      Remembering — Paul Williams

      Changing Shape — Holly Bruce

      Crushed Mint — Laura Jan Shore

      There is Only One Left — Colin Campbell

      Rest in Peace — Tony Williams

      Lost at Sea — Coral Sturgess

      Spatial High Jinks — William Mildren

      A Spring Outing — David John Lynch

      Fire on the Skyline — Harry Gorry

      Outback Casanova — Isla Troy

      Heavens Above! — David Campbell

      Her Project — Richard Harvie

      Annie — Sophie Constable

      The Complaints Department — Helen Rogan

      Enid Remembers… — Beata Frey Taylor

      12.7 Hours — Martin Lindsay

      Petrichor — John Poole

      Afterglow — Tony Williams

      It’s Ten-Thirty and They’re Calling My Name — Vanessa McKinley

      Heaven, Up a Gum Tree — Tania Favazza

      The Music of Life — Michael Keane

      Swipe Error — Martin Lindsay

      To Fill the Heart — Barbara Gurney

      Jillian — Derek Scales

      The Ticket — Richard Marman

      Roadside Tragedy — Catherine Cooper

      Lang was Right! — Benjamin Lee

      Acknowledgement — Stephanie Brown

      The Mouths of Babes — Christine Ferdinands

      Redemption Bay — Paul Whipp

      Drop Bear — Benjamin Lee

      Truly — Graham D’Elboux

      You Won’t Remember Me — Andy Lynam

      A Lovely Cup of Tea — J.B. Rowley

      Reprieve — Anne Dwyer

      Bad Sport — John Scholz

      What Price Bubbles — Harry Gorry

      Today — Stephanie Brown

      The Call — Michael Carland

      The Note — Richard Marman

      Just Friends — Jacqui Halpin

      A Glass Almost Full — Otto Fischer

      The Stringybark Flash and Microfiction Awards 2012

      About the Judges

      Acknowledgements

      Introduction

      — David Vernon

      I recall being amused as a teenager by supposedly the shortest story ever written:

      Adam had ’em.

      Clever, ambiguous and it rhymed. As an adult I was even more taken by a story purportedly written by Ernest Hemmingway. It is a mere six-word short story:

      For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

      Whether it is apocryphal or not, it has been reported that he said it was his ‘best work’. Some literary critics have claimed that the short story ‘is dead’ and a glance at the bookshelves in those very rare places called ‘book shops’, shows books getting thicker and thicker. Authors (and publishers) are no longer content to write a 248 page book (which was the typical paperback length through the 1930s to the 1970s) but have to write 500 page block busters, followed by trilogies, sequels and prequels. While these tomes can look very impressive, writing a five thousand word story is actually much easier than a one thousand word story. It takes considerable skill to weave a great story in one thousand words. The author has to provide enough context, setting and characterisation to make the story satisfying for the reader — oh, and also provide a good plot and write in a pleasing style. That’s a very big demand to make of very few words.

      In this anthology you will find fifty-six flash fiction stories which are one thousand words or fewer in length, and just to keep you really astounded by the quality of writing that can be shoe-horned into a little space, we are delighted to showcase twenty-one micro-fiction stories (one hundred words or fewer).

      These stories are the very best of the 345 entries received in the Stringybark Flash and Microfiction Awards. Have a read and be impressed with the scope and quality of stories written by these Australian and international authors.

      David Vernon

      Judge and Editor

      Stringybark Stories

      November 2012

      The Coffee Drinkers

      — Beverley Fitzgerald

      It’s late when I wake to hear the front door close with a courteous click. I’m relieved he’s gone. It was a moment of indiscretion fuelled by a balmy evening, slow dance music, too much red wine — but not too much to dim the memory. Let’s keep it like that as I slow-stretch into the morning. Facing a lover across disheveled sheets is never easy and the gothic smudge of yesterday’s eye makeup is not engaging.

      I trail around the apartment snatching up garments flung off in the heat of the night, until I gather the energy to become civilized and go out for a coffee. I find my wallet and mobile. There’s a business card lodged between them. Ring me. Please. Carlo. Maybe. Too many maybes, too many expectations, too many disappointments. 

      I stroll through the park along the Brisbane River, feeling the world soft around me. The aged timber kiosk squats under the Moreton Bay fig trees, with clothed tables and painted chairs scattered around its perimeter like lackadaisical butterflies around a flowerpot. Groups of Sunday morning coffee drinkers bring a warm bee-buzz as they gather in family groups, couples and solitaries with the Sunday papers. I order a strong macchiato and pain de chocolat and stroll around the back to find a spare spot with my iPad.

      I check out Facebook and decide to say nothing about last night. I’m distracted by a noisy group nearby. Dark-eyed cousins of Adonis with skin the colour of almond husks and arms that ripple and wave in the morning sunlight, are reliving and regaling the conquests of the previous night. I settle down and try not to listen. Maybe my last-night lover is telling a similar story somewhere. I drift back to the details of the night and breathe into a smiling sigh. Perhaps…

      More bustling as others arrive. I’ve seen this big Italian family here before. Children in shiny shoes and bows or silk-backed vests are hugged and chortled over. This morning, a new baby is greeted as a miracle, presents unwrapped, tiny fingers around Nona’s thumb. The old man stands behind her shouting, Another link in the Baglio chain — we need Chianti, not coffee!

      Somewhere in my core, something stirs.

      I go back to the iPad but there’s no heart in it. A peloton of lycra-wrapped, middle-aged men, sleek and satiny under high-tech helmets, clack by on their cleats, flaunting tight bums and sweaty armpits. I smell the maleness, so turn my attention to a bearded chin, deep in the Sunday papers, picking up his cappuccino by instinct. He lifts his gaze as a sensibly-skirted woman arrives and touches him with a gentle, quotidian kiss on his raised cheek. His eyes bright, gather her in.

      On the edge of the Italian group, the patriarch’s accent is loud and rambunctious; challenging those who aren’t paying him homage. The thicket of his hair is slate-gray, and his paunch balloons his t-shirt over his dark trousers. Yet, he is a handsome, dominating presence as he roams around the table, slapping shoulders, leaning over the other coffee drinkers who jolly him as he jostles for attention. To enhance his panache he calls to Nona, Hey! Mia Bella Brunetta, his dark eyes shift as though still in the ripening surges of youthful desire in Perugia. She smiles at him, as she sits aside in the sunshine, plump tummy-rolls from too many babies and leftover pasta, girthing the slim litheness of her girlhood. It is hard not to like them; to envy them, so far from their homeland, yet home is here, in the heart of this clan on the banks of the broad, peaceable river flowing to the Pacific. 

      As the sun climbs, he sheds his shirt, ripping it up over his head, sucks in his stomach, while his strong hands brush the silvery hairs on his chest; aging skin slips visible under his armpits. He cocks a baseball cap to the back of his head and lets out an immense breath of satisfaction.

      Hey Giovanni, look who’s here! someone shouts.

      The girl swings in among the coffee drinkers on long-stemmed legs. The sun shafts behind, framing and gilding her, her soft shirt cushioning her full breasts. Red beads dash colour at her throat and her hair slides down her back like warmed honey.  The old man stretches up, thrusts out his chest, arms wide to greet her. She dips around him.

      I watch him as the heat of the day rises. His gaze drowns in the half cups of her buttery breasts as she stoops to kiss the new baby. He pulls out a chair for her to sit beside him. On the edge of the seat, she tosses her hair to the young men whose lust is as visible but quieter. They know their challenge has a greater chance. Babbling his unleashed desires, the old man demands that the waiter to bring her coffee and offers her buns and cakes as a young lover bearing gifts. When he thinks no one is looking, he strokes the girl’s bare leg, smooth as tawny satin and grins when his Bella Brunetta catches him.

      Neither shifting nor flinching, the girl picks up his hand and drops it coolly on his ardour as though his life's sap had already dried and grown cold to her touch. Her eyes meet his.

      Did you sleep well, old man? He laughs in a raucous crow to drown the vengeful merriment of his heirs while his wife bends her mouth over the curving whiteness of her porcelain coffee cup.

      Soon after, they leave. He wraps his arm around his Bella Brunetta. She settles into her familiar niche as he walks her home. He pats her buttock. Their laughter eddies in the warm, noonday air. 

      I check my wallet to see if I still have the business card.

      Beverley Fitzgerald has been a writer since childhood although marriage, family and a professional career postponed her complete attention to creativity until recently. Her poetry has been published in Hecate, (October, 1999) and short stories in one book many brisbanes (2010) and short-listed for Country Style short story competition 2012. From her writing desk she looks over the rainforests, birds and beauty of Mt Glorious to Moreton Bay.

      Cutting

      — Graeme Simsion

      We did not know how much of Sophie we were taking home.

      She had lost weight and hair and could only walk a few metres without assistance. But the weakness was symmetrical, not the localised immobility that you see in a stroke victim. Once it was apparent that she was going to live, physical incapacity had been the worst-case scenario.

      Any time you operate on the brain, there’s going to be damage. But we’re going to be a fair way from the areas that control the motor functions.

      So there won’t be any long-term effects?

      "I can’t promise that. We hope we can avoid any impact on physical functioning."

      And mentally?

      The area we’re taking the tissue from is involved in cognitive processes. And personality.

      There was every probability that she would dance and ski again. If she could remember the moves. Or wanted to.

      She sat in the front of the car, answering questions monosyllabically. Yes, no, meh. She could have been any seventeen-year-old who was not in a mood to engage with her parents. The cognitive function tests had been encouraging, and she obviously understood what we were saying. But we were not concerned about her ability to count backwards by nines or name four-legged animals or words beginning with c. We wanted to know if the person with the mordant sense of humour, the daughter whom we thought was being flippant when she had said, Something’s eating my brain, six weeks ago, still existed.

      She had spent four weeks in intensive care, on the brink of death, while the doctors tried to work out what infection had attacked her brain. The biopsy was a last, invasive attempt to find out. They had told us that it might be the right time for the family to say goodbye.

      She had survived the operation, but the pathology tests had failed to provide an answer. Then, for reasons that were essentially unknown, she began to recover. Perhaps it was one of the drugs, perhaps our prayers to a God we didn’t believe in, perhaps something of the bloody determination that lay below her veneer of flippancy.

      No one spoke the unspeakable. Opening her skull and cutting out a piece of her brain that affected her thinking and personality had not been necessary.

      For three weeks at home, she improved. She recovered her appetite and strength, spoke in sentences and made sense. We went to St Kilda where a reincarnation of Edith Head fitted her with a wig, which she accepted with good grace — uncharacteristic good grace. At one time it would have been an opportunity for jibes about vanity, biting comments about who might wear which wig, and some testing of the proprietor’s comfort zone. Instead, she calmly, even meekly, selected the wig that most closely resembled the hair that she had lost.

      Her friends visited, and she went out with them. And they and we looked at each other and wondered silently what had become of their friend and our daughter.

      The brain does not regenerate like other parts of the body. Sometimes it can build new pathways; find other ways of doing what it did before. But personality is such a subtle manifestation of the state of the brain that no neurologist could tell us what to expect. When we finally allowed ourselves to acknowledge and discuss what must be obvious to all, we struggled to pin it down.

      "She’s lost her sense of humour, her sense

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