Feral

By David Vernon

Forty-four short stories are showcased in Stringybark Stories largest ever anthology of award-winning short stories. Selected from 360 entries from Australia and around the world, these stories are quirky, clever, poignant, sometimes sad, occasionally scary, sporadically funny, but always entertaining. They are a ripper read. 'Feral' is contemporary short story writing at its best.

She found Julia sitting on her bed with her legs straight out, holding the shell to her ear. Her eyes were wide and seemed to stare through her bedroom wall, eastwards, to the horizon.
“Come on, Darling, dinnertime.”
Julia didn’t move. Rachel had never seen her so transfixed without an electronic device in her hands. She clicked her fingers: “Hello, Earth to Julia!”
— from 'The Shell' by Penny Durham

As if in uniform to go to the beach, an Australian Saturday custom, the women wore sun-tops and shorts, the men, swimming gear and unbuttoned shirts. Joy favoured the ventilation of an African wraparound green and red skirt for the walk home in the heat. The red light flashed, and the crowd bunched as they reached a pedestrian crossing. Joy overheard a woman’s whispered broadside, “I’m your romantic other, not your wife.”
— from 'Song of the Frangipani' by Rosemary Lewis

Sounds stupid, but there was a time I thought we were immortal. We were always looking forward, always making plans – ‘The Big Trip’, ‘On the Wallaby’. Then, just when you think you’ve cracked it, the bottom drops out of your bucket and you realise, you’re just like everybody else, you’ve got an ‘end-date.’
— from 'Last Tango' by Mike Woodhouse

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Vernon
• Release date: Jun 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215780206

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.

Book preview

Feral — forty-four award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Awards

Edited by

David Vernon

Selected by Alice Richardson, Margie Perkins, Dr Andrew Perry and David Vernon

Published by Stringybark Publishing

PO Box 464, Hall, ACT 2618, Australia

https://www.stringybarkstories.net

http://www.stringybarkpublishing.com.au

Smashwords Edition

Copyright: This collection, David Vernon, 2023

Copyright: Individual stories, the authors, various.

These stories are works of fiction and do not relate to anyone living or dead unless otherwise indicated.

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 the editor, judges and the authors of these stories.

Contents

Introduction

Bright Young Things — Madeleine Cleary

Galvanised — Maria Bonar

Headfirst — Rosemary Stride

Murder Overheard — Corinne MacKenzie

The Monday Fisherman — AZ Pascoe

Highly Flammable — Lisa Kate Moule

Vera and Hemmingway — Michal Horton

The Swaggie and His Spirits — Alyce Caswell

Motherhood is a Shipping Container — Nikki Wilkinson

All the Way — Hayley Coombes

Mending Fences — David Christensen

Euphony — Tanya Allen

A New Dream — James Alexander

A Dying Country — Luke Kains

Daphne — Steve Rogers

The Day the Men Stayed Home — Gia Di Pietro

Midnight Blues — Connery Brown

The Shell — Penny Durham

Last Wave — J.J. White

My Guiding Star — Alexandra Rickert

D-Bot and Tasmin — Benjamin Lee

Change Past — Jason Spongberg

Bowlo — Greg Schmidt

Sideshow — Pamela Swanborough

Feral — Emma Rosetta

Kirra and the Bunyip — Jan Hayes

Heaven, An Angel’s Review — Catherine Beeton

Song of the Frangipani — Rosemary Lewis

The Ties that Bind — David Campbell

Nothing at All — Marlise Pienaar

Birthright — Gayle Neighbour

One Measly Pound — Tom Walters

The van Gogh Trees — Susan Yardley

Sunshine — Alessandra Dennehy

Last Tango — Mike Woodhouse

Little Knuckler — Gayle Malloy

How Silence Works — Ebony Frost

Clarry’s Close Call — Stephen Knox

Water Dragons — AZ Pascoe

The Eyes of the Law — Terence Phillips

Morning Tea — Chelsea Emerick

The Visitors — Mandy Gwan

The Edge of Existence — Katya Lindsay

The Archimedes Principle — John Scholz

The Stringybark Short Story Award 2023

About the Judges

Judges’ Report

Acknowledgements

Other titles by David Vernon at Smashwords.com:

Introduction

— David Vernon

The annual Stringybark Open Award is always a delicious competition to run. It’s a little like sampling a box of assorted chocolates — you never really know what you’re going to get. You do know, because it’s chocolate, that it’s generally going to be a tasty selection, but will you get your favourite one, or the one you always leave to last (or give to your spouse, with an apologetic shrug)?

In the case of the 2023 Award, the four judges had 360 delights to sample. Some were dark with blood red centres, sultry and intriguing, others were of a toffee consistency that were hard to chew, some had bright and spicy overtones that perked you up, and some, sadly, were well past their use by date. But the joy in reading these stories was that you never knew what you were going to get, and as for the subject matter! Goodness! From murder and mayhem, love and romance, death and destruction, birth and re-birth to laughter, despair, passion and tears… So many intriguing tales caused the judges to work overtime to whittle down to the wonderful forty-four stories we present to you here.

This is the forty-second anthology of short stories curated by Stringybark Stories and it is certainly our largest and most entertaining collection yet. As always, I want to thank the marvellous volunteer judges who have worked so hard to create this book — Alice Richardson, Margie Perkins and Dr Andrew Perry. I also wish to give a heartfelt thanks to authors, Graeme Simsion and Anne Buist, who have so kindly sponsored the award money for this competition. Finally, thanks must be given to the authors, who laboured so hard to make the jobs of the judges so difficult. We love you for it.

Happy reading!

David Vernon

Judge and Editor

Stringybark Stories

Bright Young Things

— Madeleine Cleary

There’s not a speck of cloud in the bright summer sky when the owner of Church Lane B&B says a hailstorm is coming.

Johnny caught me sneaking out of my cottage after I had avoided the awkward check-in chit chat by using the key box. My heart flopped at the sight of the ruddy-faced man and his drooping dog.

Sure about that? I ask, scepticism laced in my city vowels, as I stretch my Lululemon-encased legs and sip from my Frank Green drink bottle. I glance up and shield my eyes, my Ray Bans failing to protect me from the brightness of the Victorian summer sky.

‘I’m sure,’ Johnny says. Go running now, luv, and you might not make it back in one piece.

My smart watch beeps at me.

Run. Run. Run.

I sigh as I switch it off and pinch the bridge of my nose.

Fine, I say, glancing again at the cloudless sky, trying to back away from this conversation and into the bosom of my cottage. I have a dozen downloaded home workouts from lockdown I can easily recover.

Where you from? Johnny asks, patting his giant golden retriever on the rump. With one foot inside, and one foot out, I feel stuck.

Canberra, I say. For years I told people I was from Melbourne but lived in Canberra because…who wants to be a Ken Behren? But then I got promoted, bought an apartment, spent my weekends climbing Mount Ainslie and started defending the capital vehemently to my Melbournian friends and family. My ‘one year in Canberra’ turned into ten.

Ah! Johnny says. So, you work with Albo then? And Penny?

Sure, I say, though I’ve never met a politician in my life. In fact, my overpaid desk job working with people who look and sound like me makes me feel squeamish.

Well, you tell them, he says, raising his two middle fingers at the cloudless sky. You tell them that Johnny from Nimawa says fuck you.

I blink a few times as he chuckles, and his dog barks twice in agreement.

Mum would like to paint this, I think suddenly. A man and his dog, fingers raised to a summer sky. Is there somewhere I can get a drink around here?

Now, luv, you’re speaking my language.

Johnny books me a table at the pub and tells me to order the parma and garlic baguette. My smart watch will be furious.

The sign out front states ‘Voted Nimawa’s Best Pub’ and I cannot tell whether it’s being facetious. The town is the pub, and the pub is the town, and it’s familiar, like ordering a lemon squash on a scorcher. There’s a wrap-around verandah, an off-kilter Carlton Draught sign, the acidic smell of stale beer wafting through open windows, and a table of giant men in work boots and high vis out front. Here the umbrellas are printed with ‘Brown Brothers Wines’, just to remind patrons that while Nimawa may be a border town, we’re in Victoria, not New South Wales, mate.

I pause at the ‘Bartenders Wanted’ sign in the window, a staple since the pandemic. An old bloke nursing a beer watches me.

Need the backpackers back, I reckon, he says, grinning. Backpackers back!

I nod, mostly to dissuade him from talking to me. I follow the sign that says ‘Bistro’ in curling, faded letters and am greeted by two little Jack Russells, their tails thumping against the cedar floor.

Hello, dear, a woman says, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Johnny sent you?

I slide onto a high-backed chair at a table wiped clean by Deb’s filthy rag. The bistro’s threadbare carpet of little red squares and blue flowers is fading, and a signed poster from the VFL 1986 Grand Final hangs over an empty fireplace. At the bar, wine glasses dangle upside down like bats.

You timed it well, I reckon, Deb says. Just before the storm.

I glance out at the piercing blue sky before checking the clear weather radar on my smart watch. Looks alright to me.

Deb taps her nose. You’ll see. Order at the bar when you’re ready, dear.

It’s a Tuesday night but the pub hums with locals just having ‘one quick frothy’. There’s a bubbly table of women wearing too much make-up and too little clothing – a young woman at the head with a bride-to-be sash whispering to her friends. They watch me as I glance at the menu. There’s a hiss as they pour prosecco, laughing as bubbles froth over the rim.

Deb captains the beer taps for the ‘one quick frothiers’ while simultaneously taking my order. Afterwards, with a glass of local pinot, I open the book Mum recommended, but while I trace the words, I cannot absorb their meaning. They look less like words and more like ants scuttling across the page.

My heart jolts because I cannot stop thinking about her, and I wish I’d gone for that run. I press my fingers to my temples and take deep, shallow breaths. I open UberEATS and wonder if they’ll deliver to the sticks, because I need to get out.

Someone taps me on the shoulder. The ‘backpackers back’ bloke smiles down at me. He has a grimy grey beard, weathered skin, and he’s wearing khaki pants and a tartan shirt that smells like damp carpet. You ever thought that the world is just a pub inside a larger pub?

One of the Jack Russells brushes past and I itch my leg. I wipe my clammy hands on my jeans. I’m sorry, what?

I cringe. My mentor says I apologise too much.

The man takes a seat, and I pinch my eyes closed before opening them, hoping he’s just a mirage. But he’s still there and he’s gesturing around him, his eyes widening. What if our whole world is just like a little speck of dust inside a larger pub. What if we’re sitting in a tiny pub inside a larger one?

For the first time in two days, I laugh. A little of the pressure in my temples recedes.

Tim, stop bugging the girl, a woman calls from the hens’ party. She’s red-lipped with vicious emerald nails.

Tim puts his hands up. I’m not doing anything. She looks like a bright one, that’s all, so I wanted her ‘pinion. Not like you lot.

They howl and hiss at him collectively, and I smile again, missing my own collective. I haven’t smiled since her.

No one needs your philosophising, Tim, Deb says, as she places my parma and baguette on the table. It groans beneath their substantial weight, and as my smart watch tightens, I rip it off.

Come join us! cries the bride-to-be.

Not knowing how to refuse, I awkwardly carry my book, my pinot, my watch, my meal and cutlery over to their larger table. The women stare at me.

We’ve been trying to work out what you’re doing here on your own.

Tim’s on his own, I say, taking a bite of my parma. The combination of hot melted cheese, smoked ham and Napoli sauce makes me sigh.

The bride smiles. Tim’s not a pretty girl like you.

Oi! Tim shouts. I’m pretty!

I’m stopping on my way to Melbourne, I say, fighting a smile. I fought with Dad, as I’d planned to drive straight. He booked me a room after I’d refused.

What’s in Melbourne? My stomach sinks, and the parma in my mouth turns to ash.

When I don’t respond, another one pipes up. Johnny told us you’re from Canberra and work with Albo! Are you on secret government business?

I almost put my head in my hands. I look at the young bride-to-be, her skin glowing and eyes bright in her tight, cream dress. How can I tell her I’m driving to Melbourne because my mother is dead?

The call came two days ago: heart attack. It had been months since I last saw her — Too busy at work, weekend plans with friends, flights are too expensive, Christmas is just around the corner, Mum, I’ll be home then. No, don’t come visit me in Canberra. Canberra is dull and hot and dry. Have you seen the cost of flights and fuel these days?

She rang me four days ago, and I ignored it. I was drinking deconstructed gin and tonics with friends. I tried calling Mum back after Dad told me she was dead, but her phone was disconnected.

I blamed Australia at first. This country is too big, her cities too far apart. Why build a capital in the middle of nowhere? Why couldn’t I get a job in Melbourne?

I blamed the pandemic for closing the borders, the travel industry for making flights too expensive, Putin for invading Ukraine.

I blamed all the bright things that kept me from home.

But most of all, I blame myself.

My reply is drowned out by hail stones the size of gumnuts pelting the pub’s tin roof.

Madeleine Cleary is an emerging writer living in Canberra. She has been highly commended and shortlisted for several Australian short story competitions and recently finished her first novel, a piece of historical fiction set in 1850s Melbourne, inspired by her illustrious family of brothel owners and prostitutes. She spent five years working in bookshops where she met her husband, and together they travel the world, inhale books and tell stories.  

Galvanised

— Maria Bonar

You open your eyes to your unlikely accomplice. Hair the colour of a fluorescent carrot, silver nose-studs and a snake tattooed around her neck. Billie’s fruity mango scent sweetens the air.

C’mon, Frank, You ready to go? she whispers.

I’m ready.

You swivel to the edge of the hospital bed and she expertly manoeuvres you onto the wheelchair, slings your pre-packed hold-all onto your lap and pushes you out the door. You escape along the verandah and into the darkened car park. Your beat-up Falcon ute is parked in the far corner, an old friend you haven’t seen in a while. Before you know it, you and the wheelchair are stowed and on the road, the breeze fresh on your face. You can scarcely believe it. You whoop for joy like you’re five years old, instead of sixty-five. Billie catches your mood, laughs, and turns on the stereo. Heavy guitars and pounding drums fill the night as she sings along to the angst-ridden lyrics. Her voice is unexpectedly deep and sultry, like a jazz singer. She constantly surprises you.

You are made for each other. A broken-down old bastard like you, waiting for a permanent room in a geriatric home, without hope, without legs, without a future. Billie, a ward-of-the-state survivor in a part-time, shit-paid job as a care assistant with a mounting HECS debt, suddenly evicted from her rat-hole student rental. You made some changes this week – took your old house off the market and made a new will. Your hard-won compo finally came through. You’re gonna use some of it to fit the house out for a wheelchair and pay Billie a decent wage to look after you while she finishes her nursing degree. She can be the daughter you always wanted.

When you first saw Billie you said, Here comes trouble, looking at her tatts and dark blue nail varnish, contrasting with her neat uniform. Yet only a couple of months later, here you are, gone from zero to a hundred in your opinion of her. The punk exterior is camouflage. She’s like an echidna, all spikes but with a soft underbelly.

When you pop your clogs – or maybe pop your kneecaps – since you don’t have feet no more – she’s gonna get your house and money. There’s nobody else to leave it to, so better Billie gets it than the government. Roger Cook’s got a huge budget surplus. He doesn’t need yours as well.

It’s about time you had some good luck, after losing Colleen to breast cancer then getting your legs crushed by a forklift. Not quite the retirement you planned.

You remember your fears when Colleen was first diagnosed and how stoic she was in everything she went through. The disfiguring surgery, the chemo, the radiotherapy. You told her she was as beautiful to you as always. And you meant it. She was angry at first. Cursed her useless breasts that never got to feed any babies. Not for the want of trying. You both remembered the miscarriages and your premature stillborn son. Such a tiny, perfect, little bub you could cup in your hands. His fingernails like delicate miniature pink shells you find on the beach. His eyelids the palest mauve. If you close your eyes, you can still feel his fine downy hair, damp against your cheek and smell the faint vanilla-like fragrance of his skin.

But you and Colleen got through everything in life together – the good times and the bloody hard times. The relief when she got the ‘all clear’ from the oncologist. Then the return, eighteen months later, like a knockout punch. Nothing more to be done. She faded so quickly to bones and frail flesh. Towards the end, when you rolled her over to make her comfortable, you could see her shoulder blades, her pelvis and each individual bone in her spine poking out from under her fragile skin. She was as delicate as an iridescent soap bubble floating in the air. You never loved her more. At that moment, your constant dread at the thought of losing her changed to a wish to set her free and end her pain. You felt she was hanging in there just for you and maybe you needed to let her go. You climbed into bed beside her and cradled her in your arms. You told each other what you had loved and what you were going to miss. You shared your memories, your sorrows and your joys and said your last goodbyes. You lay there with her until she slipped away, the dawn light rosy at the window. You whispered to her, I’ll see you soon, Colleen.

Afterwards, you hated living alone in the house. You wanted to move to Jurien Bay when you retired, a place that held happy memories. You and Colleen used to go there on holidays and you talked about buying a beach house overlooking the ocean one day. So, that was the plan until the forklift ruined it. Having to fight the firm for compo after working there for thirty years was a low blow.

But that’s all in the past now. Things are looking up and you’ve just taken control of your life again. Maybe you can afford a couple of those hi-tech prosthetic legs like the Paralympians? That would be something! Go from a rusted-out old bugger to a galvanised super pensioner. Ah, the possibilities. You grin at Billie as she drives you nearer home sweet home. Savour the euphoria of riding up the roller coaster again after being grounded for months.

Wahoo!

Your exhilaration morphs to horror as two tons of tiger mica come roaring out of the night. A Commodore, straight up the clacker. You feel the awful weightlessness of the ute as it spins in mid-air, seemingly in slow motion, then the impact and speed of landing as it nosedives into a ditch. You feel okay at first in the silence after the prang. Then there is a sudden excruciating band of pain around your chest and back. You can’t breathe. The pain worsens, travelling up your arm to your jaw, like a flame, searing you. Your heart stops. The pain dissolves. You float above the scene like a helium filled balloon and tranquillity wraps around you like a blanket. Venus flashes in the night sky, its ancient light drawing you into the cosmos. The light becomes brighter, luring you with its promise of peace and comfort.