Short Stories
In the weeks and months after his Moira died he’d whittled off the callers, one by one, until even gentle Dave O’Donnell, his oldest friend, f ...
Before he left the family, my father worked as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company. He travelled from chemist to chemist with samples of pills and lotions and pastes in the back of his Valiant station wagon. The best sales representatives visited modern chemists in the city and suburbs. My father had to drive long distances to country chemists who ha ...
This is to say I didn’t take the old lady’s things for myself, I was only looking after them. I wanted to leave the chocolate box in her garden so when she lifted the lid she’d find her ruby rings and diamonds and pearls each tucked in their own dark nest. It was nearly ready, only two more to go – Turkish Delight and Peppermint Crème. She would have unders ...
Jolley Prize 2011 (Shortlist): 'What’s Richard Ford Got to Do with It?' by Gaylene Carbis
In the middle of their love-making, he said, suddenly – ‘Wait.’ He reached over to his wallet beside the bed and took out what was obviously a condom. He opened the packet, held up the condom and said, ‘Put it on.’
...Now you won’t believe this one, but I’ll tell it anyway. There was a man, a roof tiler, and he was happily married to a woman called Nicole who worked part-time as a nail technician; they had three kids: Nina, Aiden and Jess....
... (read more)I worked for a while with the second cousin of an acquaintance of the notorious Minean nationalist poet, H ...
Ray was stuck in traffic, an unusual feeling in a town the size of his, inching forward through a detour round the railway crossing. He watched the orange text changing on the roadside electronic billboard in the kind of trance he had recently found himself lapsing into more and more. TRACK UPGRADE he read absently. DELAYS EXPECTED. DETOUR AHEAD.
He’d forgotten – they all had. Barrelled up to the intersection into town as usual to find the contractors had been hard at it from 6 a.m. just as they’d promised, a squadron of shining earthmovers and excavators hacking away already. Thousands of dollars being spent every minute by whatever construction company had won the tender. Not anyone local, that’s for sure. Ray might have had some contract work himself, then.
... (read more)Just the slightest movement of the curtain as she stands by the window. Just a touch. That’s how she brings the light in, Jacqui does. Just before dawn, with only the smallest movement of her finger, and in comes the light. I see it reach the Golden Cane Palm, highlighting the larger fronds, their dark becoming green. Jacqui looks at those fronds, as I do, while the light begins to fill the room. She turns her head to me as if in a studied pose, rehearsed.
... (read more)