Surge Bin

Creative Interview

2011-12-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

The idea came suddenly to Joel, as he sat contentedly on the toilet seat. In that moment he knew it was a winner. Ten seconds later, some unsuspecting soul wondered into the Gents', and let out a moaning, retching type of sound. Whoever it was, left in a hurry. Joel smiled to himself, and finished up.

He looked at his face in the mirror as he carefully washed his hands, and decided that there would be no problem. He felt confidence flow into him as he headed to the waiting area again.

Joel's trouble was that he never did well in job interviews. He was a solid worker, he felt, but he just couldn't think of the examples and stories they wanted in interviews these days. And even if could drag up a story, he'd always down-play his own role in the drama, or the significance of the solution; mostly because he pretty much always was a minor player, and generally very modest. Modest and mediocre: that was Joel.

That was all about to change, as Joel strode down the hallway. Why not take the skills from his hobby of creative writing and apply them to job interviews? The writing itself hadn't yielded the blockbuster novel or critical acclaim he'd dreamed of – for he'd come to realise he was mediocre at writing too; but, it was a hobby that he enjoyed.

Eventually he was called into the interview room. It had white painted walls and ceiling and glaring fluro lights. The HR lady shuffled her papers and kicked things off. “We're going to ask you some behavioural questions,” she said. “We're looking for specific examples, where you can tell us about a situation, what you did, and then what the outcome was. Is that okay?”

Joel smiled; that was going to be perfect. “Sure.”

The lady smiled back. Even the grizzled old manager beside her seemed to soften a bit.

“Can you tell us about a time you came across a situation or a practice that was unsafe; what you did about it, and what the outcome was?”

Joel took a deep breath. “Sure,” he said. “When I arrived at the place I currently work, I found that people had to walk across the roads on site a lot, which involved lots of interactions with light and heavy vehicles.”

Which was true; but of course, he'd gotten used to it, like everyone else. Grizzly and HR lady both nodded, starting to scrawl notes. Joel smiled; he was about to get his creative writing written by dictation. He continued, “So I conducted a traffic study, and based on my analysis and my research into Australian Standards and the Coal Mining Health and Safety Act and Regulations, I wrote a draft Traffic Management Plan for the site, which included quite a few changes.”

They'd stopped writing now, and were watching him, awestruck. Joel didn't miss a beat. “I costed all the changes, and then facilitated a semi-quantitative risk assessment around the major changes I'd identified; using a cross-section of the work force. I then presented my findings and recommendations to the Senior Management Team. They approved the plan, and further approved nine-hundred-thousand dollars in out-of-plan capital to make all the proposed changes.”

Joel smiled, as if at the memory. “I project-managed all the changes, though I was given a few resources to help out, of course. We now have a system of well-lit and signed pedestrian crossings, as well as segregated traffic flows and hard barriers in the higher risk areas.”

HR lady was back to scribbling notes now. The manager looked stunned.

“Was that the sort of answer you were looking for?” asked Joel, trying to sound as innocent as he could.

“Perfect,” they both said together, then laughed.

He nailed the rest of the interview, of course, and heard promising noises at the end about “progressing things to the next stage”. The job was his – he knew it – his first senior engineering role. It was his, until that grizzly fool had to talk to his boss for the reference check, and started to blubber on about how impressed he was with the traffic changes, and the increases in plant yield and the reduction in site costs.

This was first published in Shift Miner Magazine.

Retribution

2011-12-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

I used to live next door to drug dealers. I should say they used to live next door to me. To be even more precise, when they used to live, they lived next door to me.

They weren’t just dealers; they were cooking up what they were selling. Everybody knew, but nobody called the cops. There wasn’t much point, because it made life very uncomfortable if you did. They had friends in low places, clearly.

I left them alone though, until a kid died, shooting up on some of their speed. His mother was pretty upset about it, I heard. I’d had enough of living in such close proximity to that scum. It was time for retribution. It was for the kid, I suppose, and a little bit for his grieving mother, but I was sick of the smell.

Friday night I could smell that they were have a cook-up. I put on some gloves, jumped the fence and turned off their gas bottle. After a few seconds I turned it back on. I could hear the gas rushing through the valve. I smiled, and scurried home. I sat on the toilet, immobile, with earplugs in my ears and my hands over my head until the house shook with the force of the explosion. All my windows on the eastern side of the house shattered.

The police called around later asking why nobody on the street had called the police or the fire brigade. Everyone said they thought someone else would have.

This is my response to Three Word Wednesday (3WW) number CCL

This week's words:
Immobile; adjective: Not moving; motionless; incapable of moving or being moved.
Proximity; noun: Nearness in space, time, or relationship.
Retribution; noun: Punishment that is considered to be morally right and fully deserved

It's Futile

2011-12-02T02:31:00.001-08:00

“It's futile.”

“What is?”

“Everything.”

Bill rubbed his eyes and shook his head. “Whatta ya mean, everything?”

“Life, stuff,” said Graham. “Work, especially. Here we are, a thousand k's from anywhere, in Woop-Woop, working ourselves to the bone, twelve hours a day. Why? What's it for?”

“Don't know about you, but I do it for the money.”

“And what's the money for? Nothing lasts.”

Bill shrugged. “Food, a home for the family, cars, schooling, a boat, holidays. You need money for everything.”

“But none of that lasts. You can't take it with you when you go, can you?”

“I can't?” said Bill. “Well if that's the case, I'm not goin'.” He laughed at his own joke; it was his favourite kind.

Graham swore. “Can't you keep up a serious conversation for once?”

“Sorry mate,” said Bill, trying to look sorry. “You're very correct. You can't take your gear with you when you kark it.”

Graham sighed. He went to the wet-mess bar and got two more beers. He came back and handed one to Bob. They sat in silence for a few minutes, and watched the sun flood the sky with red and orange as it began to set. The brigalow and a few gum tree stood out against the brightness in black silhouette. The clouds looked like they were on fire.

Bob said, “Might be the middle of nowhere, but I like it out here. More than Brisbane.”

Graham said, “I hate Brisbane, actually.”

“You hate everything today. You sound like you're in a hurry to curl up and die.”

“No, but we all die, and then nothing's left.”

“You really think that? You die, and then that's the end of everything?”

Graham shrugged. “It's futile.”

“You mentioned that.”

Graham grunted.

After a minute Bob smiled. “Ah!” he said, to himself.

“What's up?”

Bob said, “Your girlfriend called it off, didn't she?”

Graham turned suddenly to face him. His surprise was obvious. “She wasn't my girlfriend,” he said. “She was my fiancée.”

Bob said nothing, but shook his head.

Graham mumbled, “Yeah, she called it off.”

“Even though it's futile, would you like another beer?”

“I hate you,” said Graham. “But: yes, I would.”

This story was first published in Shift Miner Magazine.

Apology Accepted

2011-06-16T03:20:00.000-07:00

He looked out the kitchen window and saw her hanging washing on the line. The breeze tugged at the towels and shirts, and the line danced as it fought to hold them back. The breeze pulled her skirt up around her legs and made her hair a long, blonde banner. She was so beautiful; but, so stubborn. He sipped the cold water in his glass, then sighed. He put down the glass, and went out to her.

“Hello,” he said as he approached. She didn't react, except that she may have flinched, slightly. She kept hanging up the clothes.

He reached into the basket, took out a towel and put it on the line. He took one of his high-vis work-shirts from the basket. He started to peg the collar to the line.

“Upside down,” she said, startling him. He turned toward her. She stood, her hands on her hips, looking at him.

“Sorry?” he said.

“You hang shirts upside down,” she said, pointing to two, already on the line.

“Oh,” he said. He took off the peg and hung the shirt the other way around, checking his work against the two templates. He glanced at her. She hadn't moved. Her hair was flicking around her face. He saw the curve of her body under her clothes and the trace of a smile on her face. Maybe a smile, anyway.

“Why don't you go upstairs?” he said. “I'll finish this off.”

She didn't move as he awkwardly hung a bra beside the shirt.

“Go on,” he said. “Put you feet up. I'll be up in a few minutes.” He leaned over and, holding the back of her head with both hands, kissed her forehead. The smell and feel of her hair reminded him of better times. He fished a lone sock from the basket and hung it beside the bra.

She stepped toward him and kissed him on the cheek. “Come find me inside,” she said softly. Her words were almost stolen by the breeze. It seemed right then that her eyes were shining wet. He said nothing. She turned and walked toward the stairs. He watched her as she walked, until she was in the house.

He smiled as he reached into the basket for a pair of shorts. He kept smiling as he felt the wind jostling around him as he hung the rest of the washing. A line, a quote from sometime in the past, kept echoing through his head. “The wind bloweth where it listeth.” Must be Shakespeare, he thought.

He noticed there were only two pegs left when he was finished. He put the two pegs in his pocket and walked towards the stairs, carrying the empty washing basket over his shoulder, thinking again of happier times. As the screen-door flapped and slammed behind him, he decided those times were now.

This story, like almost everything I post lately, was first published in Shift Miner Magazine. Incidentally, it was first not published in one or two other publications. I think I learned to love this piece more than it deserved. I hope you get something from it.

The Least I Could Do

2011-05-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

What people noticed first and remembered longest about Bernadette when they met her was her scowl. The everyday look on that woman's face could peel the paint off walls. She looked like she was angry and in pain, at the same time, all of the time. It wasn't unusual for kids to come away crying. Behind her back, Bernadette came to be nicknamed The Scowl. I had nothing to do with that, of course. Well, very little.

The other thing people noticed about The Scowl was the constant criticism and put-downs that she aimed at her dear husband – and my best mate – Stan. It made people cringe. Stan put up with all this with the patience of Job. I don't think he ever complained or told her off. That's how Poor Stan got his nickname.

But every man has his breaking point.

I was having a drink with Poor Stan at the Mount Morgan Arms Hotel one Saturday afternoon when The Scowl filled the doorway with her whole self, and screamed above the noise of the rowdy crowd, "Stan, you've had enough to drink; come home!"

Poor Stan went as red as Karl Marx. The pub went quiet. People looked at their shoes and fidgeted with their coasters.

I expected Stan to put down his glass and shuffle off after her, like he usually did.

Instead, he took a long drink from his beer.

He said to me, "If I'd of killed her when I first wanted to, I'd be out of jail by now."

That's an old and tired joke; but I was pretty sure that Stan wasn't joking. He never joked.

"I suppose it's better late than never," he said.

I could see he was close to his breaking point, and that cut me up inside. Poor Stan was a bit spineless, but he was still my mate.

I said, "Don't go back to your house. Why don't you buy a carton and go round to my place? I've got to take care of something here in town, and then we'll get on the grog. How's that sound?"

Stan put his hand on my shoulder, said that sounded good, and went to the takeaway window. I said goodbye to Bob behind the bar, and left.

In half an hour, we were at my place, drinking.

We were still throwing them back, watching the sun set, when Sergeant Ted, the local police force, came around. He broke Stan the news that his wife's body had been found only an hour ago. She'd been found behind one of those big steel rubbish bins in the narrow lane behind the shops, on the top side of the main street. Sue from the fish and chip shop got a real fright, apparently.

Stan took the news of his wife's sudden passing really well. He looked a little stunned, but more like a man who'd won lotto, than a man who'd lost his soul mate.

Sergeant Ted started his investigation right there by asking Stan if he'd killed Bernadette. Motive, the man had.

Stan didn't reply straight up, then said it was obvious that it wasn't him. Ted asked why that was.

Stan asked, "You said she were stabbed once in the back?"

Ted nodded. "That is correct."

"Well," said Stan, "I always dreamed o' stabbin' her right here in the front." He pointed to his own chest. "And never, ever, just the once. Maybe a dozen times. That's what I always dreamed of doin', and I reckon that's the way I'd of done it, if I'd of done it, which I didn't."

It didn't seem that this was the kind of evidence Ted was looking for, because he had a few words to say about that.

I butted in. "He was with me, Sergeant."

Ted didn't like being interrupted either, apparently. I never really liked Ted, so I got over it, and told my story.

"We left the pub not long after The Scowl showed up, about three..."

Stan interrupted, holding up his hand. "Don't call her that," he said, "please."

"Sorry." I shrugged. "We left the pub, with a carton, and came back here. We've been drinking since then. We haven't seen her since. Have we Stan?"

Stan shook his head. "Not since she was at the pub."

Sergeant Ted scowled, reminding me a bit of the late Bernadette. I shivered. Ted said good night, told us both to stay in town, and left.

Stan went inside and then came back with two beers. He handed one to me. "There's only two left now," he said, "and we'll have finished the carton."

"Then we'll go for a walk and get another one."

"Good idea."

We drank, and I listened to the cicadas out in the scrub. We didn't say a word until our beers were empty.

Stan said, "Thanks for covering for me mate. I didn't kill her; but thanks for covering for me. Makes things easier."

I slapped him on the back. "No worries, mate," I said. "I know you didn't kill her. It was the least I could do."

This story was first published in Shift Miner Magazine.

A Lift Home

2011-05-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

Bruce wasn't used to having passengers in his car. It took him a minute to gather up the fast-food wrappers, coffee cups and CDs from the front seat so that Danny could get in. Danny had some sort of job with the prep plant, though Bruce wasn't sure what they did over there. Bruce threw it all on the back seat and mumbled, “Sorry about that.”

“No worries at all,” said Danny as he got in. Once Bruce was in his seat, Danny added, “It's your car. I'm just glad for the ride.

Bruce drove carefully out of the car park. Soon they were on the open road. Danny tried to start a conversation a few times, and Bruce tried hard to keep his end up, but without much joy. Bruce wasn't good at talking to people he didn't know. He almost never started a conversation. He hated that about himself, but found it hard to change.

Danny said, “You mind if we turn the radio on?”

“Sorry,” said Bruce. “No aerial.”

Danny shrugged. “You got CDs?”

Bruce coughed. “They're not really what you probably want to listen to.”

“I've got pretty broad tastes.”

“My stuff is a whole new level.”

“Wow,” said Danny. “You got me curious now. Is it very offensive?”

Bruce thought for a moment. “Not to me,” he said. “But it is to a lot of people.”

“Try me.”

Bruce tried to laugh, but it came out as a kind of squeak. He reached down turn on the car stereo.

After a moment, a man's voice began to speak. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” Then, after a pause, the voice said, “Chapter four.”

“What the -?” said Danny, turning in his seat to face Bruce. “What is that?”

Bruce reached over, and pressed the power button again. He sighed. “That,” he said, “is a man reading the Bible. I'm up to the gospel of John.”

“Why?”

“It comes after Luke.”

Danny shook his head and scratched his hair. It looked to Bruce like he was considering jumping out of the car. Bruce wondered if he should slow down a bit.

Danny said “I meant, why do you listen to that stuff?”

“I can read a lot more by listening when I'm driving then I can find time for at home.”

“You listen to a man read the bible over and over?”

“Well, not exactly. I sometimes skip to different bits. And, I've got one version of a woman reading too. She's got a nice voice.”

Danny didn't say anything.

“I listen to a lot of other things too,” said Bruce. “I've got a stack of audio-books, and I download a lot of talks, lectures and sermons from the internet.”

“You don't like music?”

“I love music, but I listen to my music at home. And at my desk at work. Car-time is my daily bible-study time.”

“It doesn't make you fall asleep?”

“You kidding?” Bruce laughed. “Nothing is more interesting, or important.”

Danny was quiet a moment. Then he said, “You know what I think's the biggest problem with you Christians?”

Bruce glanced over at Danny. He looked tense. “Not at all.”

“You're always trying to ram it down everyone's throat. All the time.”

They drove in silence until they got to town.

This story was first published in Issue 105 of Shift Miner Magazine.

Let's Go

2011-04-04T01:37:00.001-07:00

Tony walked up toward the open garage door. A Harley Davidson motorcyle had been wheeled back out of the garage onto the driveway. The water mark was up over the headlight.

Inside the garage stood a man, looking dazed.

Tony said, “G'day. We heard you could do with a hand.”

The man nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I'm Keith.”

“Tony.” Tony introduced the others. “So Keith, do you have a plan?”

“Not really.” Keith shrugged. “Never done this before.”

“Well, we have. A couple of times.”

A few of the blokes chuckled. They'd been working together four days straight now, eleven hours a day, cleaning the mud and muck out of people's homes. Any people: young families and old ladies, the well-to-do and the dirt poor. The flood had put the normal social distinctions on hold for a while, and replaced them with new ones. Now there were those whose homes were flooded, and those whose weren't; those who helped others, and those who didn't; those with insurance, and those without.

Keith raised his hands. “Look Tony, if you're gonna help, you're in charge.”

Tony nodded. “Good. Let's have a look.”

The water had come up waist high through the house. That meant any stuff up on the benches was borderline, and that cupboards and fridges may have floated around. There was a step up from the garage into the house, with no lip on the threshold; good for hosing out.

Inside, the house stank, badly. There was the usual flood smell of mud and rotting carpets, but this had a little something extra: sewage. Every house stank, but these were the worst, and there was no getting used to it. They all had to work to hold back the urge to vomit.

Out the back was a covered patio, beyond that was a muddy lawn.

Tony made some quick decisions, then spoke up loudly so that everyone could here. “All right, here's the plan. We'll get the patio hosed out and clean first. Give it a good scrub. That'll be for the clean and dry stuff.” He turned to Keith. “Have you taken photos of everything for insurance.”

“Don't have any.”

“Right. That makes it simple. Everything that's destroyed, goes out on the footpath. If something may be salvageable, out on the back lawn. Let's go.”

Keith took Tony aside for a moment. “Why not put the clean stuff in the garage?”

“It's lower than the house, and is the best place to push all the water out with squidgees.”

“Never thought of that.”

“Neither did we, the first time.” Tim smiled. “Come on mate, let's start.”

Three guys started cleaning down the patio. Everyone else started carrying wrecked stuff out to the front of the house. There was a lot of wrecked stuff.

“Maybe we could wash the mud out of the sofas,” said Keith, hesitantly.

“Don't think of it as mud,” said Tim. “Think of it as poo.”

“Why's that?”

“Because there's plenty in all this.”
“Hey?”

“Did you sand-bag every drain and every toilet bowl?”

“Well, no.”

“Well, your toilets flush both ways mate.”

Keith went pale, then vomited were he stood, onto the lounge-room floor. Two other blokes went out in sympathy. Tim could feel it in the back of his throat but managed to keep it together. He took a hose and washed the spew out into the garage, and down the driveway.

After an hour of hot, sweaty work, everything that was clean and dry had been removed to the patio. The lounge and dining room were empty of everything, including carpet and underlay. One man remained, lifting up the timber strips around the room that the carpet had once been nailed to. Everyone else had moved onto the bedrooms.

In another hour, they'd finished hosing out the mud.

Tim called his team together. “Time for lunch,” he said. “Let's go.”

This story was first published in Issue 104 of Shift Miner Magazine. It was inspired by my experiences in the clean-ups of both the 2008 and 2010 floods in Emerald; though the 2010 flood was most vivid in my mind. The 2010 floods happened (mostly) between Christmas and New Year, with most of the clean-up in the first weeks of January, before the Brisbane floods hit.

Feel free to share your flood experiences by posting a comment.

Happy Christmas

2011-02-22T14:15:00.001-08:00

Chris wasn't sure what had gone wrong with his Christmas.

He'd made all the right preparations, sparing no expense. There was plenty of grog, and he was into it at a very reasonable pace. There'd been lots of good food: ham, chicken and prawns, and all kinds of salads. He was still feeding himself as much White Christmas and nuts as he could handle without making himself sick. There'd been presents for everyone under the tree; he'd made sure everyone got what they wanted.

Now, with the presents opened and the Christmas lunch consumed, Chris sat back with his rum and coke, trying to make himself feel happy. He knew he should; and he couldn't rightly think of anything else that he wanted, that he could have or get, that might be missing.

His son Jack was playing with his new iPhone, in his room. He'd seemed happy with it.

Chris got up, and went to the kitchen where his wife was trying to work out how to use the whiz-bang fully automatic coffee machine he'd bought her. He shook his head; a thousand bucks for a machine, when a teaspoon did the same job, quicker. But, it was what she wanted. She'd seemed happy enough, when she'd unwrapped it, though not very surprised. Now her head looked like it was shaking, as she turned from looking at the manual to the machine, back and forward.

Seeing the machine made Chris think he'd like a cup of coffee, so he put the kettle on.

"Are you right?" Helen snapped at him.

Chris got such a fright he almost spilled his drink. He looked at her slightly dazed, confused. "What?"

"Don't you think I can get this to work?"

Chris thought about that for a moment; he knew a trick question when he heard one. Actually, almost all of Helen's questions were trick questions. She didn't often ask him for his opinion or his advice. "Of course you will," he said.

"Well wait five minutes and you can have a real coffee."

Chris shrugged, and turned off the kettle. As he left the kitchen the machine started to make a terrible high-pitched grinding noise.

Well, in any case, thought Chris, if he couldn't feel happy on Christmas Day, he could certainly get drunk. He made himself another rum and coke, going very easy on the coke. He used only as much as was absolutely necessary to make the concoction look black.

He went and sat on the back steps, wishing he wasn't already looking forward to his next tour. Over the fence, his neighbour was playing frisbee with one of his boys, who was about ten. They really did look like they were having a lot of fun, and for a minute he envied them, which was ridiculous. That man didn't earn half what he did: he drove a piece of junk, and their house was tiny – especially for the four or five kids they had. They might be happy for a few minutes, but it couldn't last.

The neighbour's kid laughed as he jumped to catch the frisbee. He called out, "Thanks for the frisbee dad, its fantastic."

Chris sipped his drink and frowned, and tried to think. Had Jack actually said thanks when he'd got his phone? He'd certainly said, "Cool." That didn't mean thanks though, did it?

Chris went inside to Jack's room and knocked on the door. No answer. He opened the door. Jack wasn't there. The iPhone box and manuals and cables were on his bed.

He went into the kitchen. "Helen," he said. "Jack's not in his room."

Helen handed him a cup of coffee. "He went out with his friends. I said he could go. It's not a happy Christmas if you can't have fun, is it?"

"No, I suppose not." He sipped at the coffee. It wasn't hot enough, and it tasted like dirt. He smiled. "Lovely. Happy Christmas." He took a long sip of his rum and coke.

This story was originally published in Issue 102 of Shift Miner Magazine.

Promise to Fish

2011-02-09T02:42:00.000-08:00

They fished in silence for an hour, standing close together on the beach. The sun set over the sea, flooding the sky with an orange glow. David looked up and down the coast in the fading light. They had the beach to themselves.

"You get any bites?"

Sam shook his head. "No, not yet."

In twenty minutes the sun had gone, and David and watched the white foam on the tops of the small waves shining in the moonlight as they came into the shore. He felt cold. "I'm going to make a fire," he said.

He reeled in his line and walked to their fishing bags and put down his rod. He went up to the high water mark, just below the dunes, to gather driftwood. He prepared a pile of wood on the sand to start a fire, but had nothing to light it with. He shivered, and walked back to Sam.

"Any bites?" he asked.

"I think I got one," said Sam, "just a minute ago."

"Maybe he stole your bait."

"Maybe."

"Hey, you got a light?" said David. "I don't have anything to start a fire." He knew Sam smoked, though he tried to keep it a secret from their mother. That meant he tried to hide it from David too.

"Yeah, I do. I thought we might want to make a fire."

David smiled. Sure you did.

Sam started winding in his line. "I'll come with you," he said. "I'm sick of standing here, catching nothing."

When he'd reeled his line in, he showed David the bare hook.

David nodded. They walked together to their fishing bags. Sam put his rod beside David's, and they walked over to the pile of driftwood nearby. Sam lit the dried-out seaweed and grass David had stuffed amongst the smaller pieces of wood. In a few minutes the fire was burning well. They sat as close as they could to the fire without burning the hairs on their legs. Neither of them spoke as they stared into the flames. The fire snapped and crackled. The waves dropping on the shoreline made a constant, beating sound.

Sam spoke first. "Do you have a problem?"

David smiled. Sam was always blunt; never the diplomat. "No, I'm just cold; and, I don't actually like fishing all that much."

Sam shrugged. "Me neither."

"I never fish, actually, except on these trips with you."

Sam nodded. "We used to love fishing, when we were boys, when Dad would take us. We had a lot of fun then, didn't we?"

David laughed at the memory. "Yeah."

Sam reached behind him for a piece of wood and placed it on the fire. Bright sparks jumped up into the smoke and then fizzled out high in the air. "I guess it was Dad who really liked to fish," he said.

"You really think so?" said David. He turned from the fire to study his younger brother's face. "Did you know he never went fishing by himself, after we'd both left home?"

Sam turned and looked David in the eye. "You sure? He used to talk about it."

"He talked a lot," said David, "but he never went. I asked Mum. She said he only ever fished with us. He never even went fishing before we were born. He only bought the gear when I was four or five."

"That's weird. Dad did do some weird things, didn't he?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Hey," said Sam, "how old's your little boy now?"

"Frank? He'll be five in a few months."

"You gonna take him fishing, like Dad took us?"

David thought for a moment, staring into the fire. "Yes," he said, turning back to Sam. "I think I will."

"That's good. If I had a kid, I'd take him fishing."

David didn't reply to that.

Sam spoke again. "Do you want to keep doing this; our once-a-year fishing trip?"

"We promised Dad."

"I know," said Sam. "Why did he make us promise, anyway? We don't even like fishing. We haven't caught a thing in years."

"Yeah, but we promised."

"You're right." Sam poked at the fire with a stick. "We'll keep doing it, then."

They drifted into silence again. They stared into the flames, poking at it with sticks, and throwing things into it. David said, "You wanna pack it in?"

"Sure, it's getting real cold now."

They put out the fire with sea water, fetched with the buckets that were meant to hold their catch. They walked slowly together up the beach to their cars. They packed away their gear, then shook hands. David reached forward and hugged his brother, awkwardly. "See you next year," he said.

"Yeah, sure; next year. Look, I'll try to call you, more often."

"Sure, that'd be great. Me too."

This story was first published in Issue 100 of Shift Miner Magazine.

Harden Up

2010-12-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

The sound of the alarm shattered Tim from the nothingness of deep sleep into the harsh, conscious reality of 4:30 am. He killed the sound with a fling of his arm and swung his legs out of the bed. He sat in silence, angry. Angry at being woken up so early, angry that he had no real option. The anger was normal – part of the ritual now – and helped him get up, get moving.

Tim staggered to the en-suite and took a leak. He had a drink of water from the cup on top of the vanity. He moved silently in the dark. He never turned on the light. Light was offensive at this hour.

Tim took his pants from their usual place and put them on. It was an effort. He didn't want to go to work today – more than usual - even for the first day of a tour. He worked his arms into his shirt. As he did up the buttons he noticed that it hurt a bit to swallow. He thought about this, slowly. Perhaps he was sick, or would become sick part-way through the shift.

He sneaked out of the bedroom. His wife hadn't moved the whole time, since the alarm. Perhaps she's dead, he thought. If I check, then I'll be dead. Of well, I'll find out when I get home.

He took the milk from the fridge and poured some into the bowl of cereal on the kitchen bench.

Tim ate slowly, sitting on a bar stool. It was getting towards summer now, and a little pre-dawn light came in through the windows. That made it easier to get going; not easy, but easier.

Tim didn't think about much as he ate. He couldn't think at this hour. He did decide he wasn't sick, though. His throat was still sore, but the crew would need him. Two teaspoons of cement was all he needed.

Tim left the empty bowl on the counter and grabbed his crib from the fridge as he put away the milk. He headed out the front door ten minutes after he'd woken up. He didn't need to check his watch.

He began to walk towards the bus pick-up. It would take him seven minutes, maybe eight. The birds were awake now, flying around, making a racket and catching their worms, or whatever they did.

Tim walked along the edge of the road, carrying his bag. He felt empty. It was like being sad, but worse, and different. He felt like that a lot lately. He tried not to think about how he felt.

He was glad it wasn't raining; that was something. He'd have stayed home, he thought, if it was raining. But stayed home for what?, he wondered. Better off at work. Rock and a hard place. Hard place. Harden up.

He was at the bus stop in plenty of time. Some of the others nodded, said g'day. A few were smoking, while they could. A few blokes were telling each other dirty jokes, laughing.

A year ago, Tim would've joined them. But he'd lost interest in that sort of thing. Like most things. Hate my job, and not interested in finding another one. For sure, not interested in learning a new mine, a new boss, new people. Only wish this job didn't grind me down. Harden up Tim, harden up.

"Hey Tim!"

Tim fell out of his daydream. "Hey what?"

"Coming?" The bus had arrived, and everyone else was on board. How'd I miss that?

He climbed on board to head off for the first shift of the tour.

This story was first published in Issue 99 of Shift Miner Magazine. I wrote this coming into the month of "Movember", helping to raise awareness and funds for men's health issues for prostate cancer and depression. Let's just say I wasn't going to write a story about prostate cancer.

Depression is a killer. One way to help is to so go to the beyond blue website and give some money.

Solidarity

2010-11-25T18:02:00.000-08:00

It had stopped raining the day before Sue came back to work. After seven months away, she'd expected the blokes to make a big deal of it, or poke a bit of fun, but there was none of that. Most didn't seem to know where to look, like they were embarrassed to see her. She tried not to take it personally, but it did hurt.

She kept her hard-hat on during the safety meeting; her hair was still so short. She'd always had long hair before, tied up in a bun, until she walked out of the bath-house at the end of the shift, when she'd let it down, and it would flow long and red down her back. She hoped she'd live long enough to let it grow back that long again.

Sue was glad when the meeting was over, and she could get back into her truck. She was amazed how the pit had changed in the time she'd been away. New roads created, old pits filled in, and coal coming out of places that they'd only just started hauling overburden from when she'd got sick.

She hadn't needed to go back to work for the money. She'd been told she could just quit, and get her super. But she didn't want to crawl home to die.

Here at the mine she was important: as important as everyone else, working together like a machine to move dirt and coal.

By mid-morning, the circuit was second-nature to her again. She slipped straight back into the system: queuing, loading, hauling, dumping, returning and then queuing again. Sometimes the work was monotonous, but it was never boring. She was always learning, always looking around at what was going on.

Today, Sue sometimes found herself smiling with the simple satisfaction that she was back on the job. She took off her hard-hat at last, and ruffled her hands through her inch-long hair.

By crib time, she felt she'd re-proven herself - not to the others, but to herself – that she could still do it. When she'd first become an operator, she was the first woman at the pit, and there were plenty of men waiting and watching, ready for her to fail. In time, she'd proven herself. She earned the respect, and even the friendship of most of those that later admitted that they hadn't wanted to see a woman working at the mine.

Then the cancer had come. Physically, it had destroyed her, almost. And, in a way more sinister and less expected, it had threatened to destroy her as a person, and as a woman. She had once shown the men that she could do it; today she had showed herself again. She'd operated her truck text-book style: no mistakes, no delays. It gave her confidence again, as an operator, and as a person.

As she parked up at the crib-rooms she looked down to take off her seat-belt and the sight of her chest brought tears to her eyes, as it often did. It looked the same on the outside as it did before, but the prosthesis didn't go far to replace what she'd lost. She clenched her teeth together, wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and planted her hard-hat firmly on her head. Recovering her confidence and her identity as a woman would take the longest time, she knew.

After a minute, she'd calmed herself back down. She took her crib bag and left the cab of the truck.

She kept her hard-hat on, of course, as she slipped into the crib-room.

"Welcome back, Sue," said someone. She looked up. It was Ted, sitting down in a group of four, dealing out the first hand of five-hundred. He gave her a big smile.

Sue looked around the crib-room, suddenly shocked. Everyone in the room was wearing their hard-hat.

This story was first published in Issue 97 of Shift Miner Magazine. That issue - and this story - had a special focus on breast cancer awareness and research. It doesn't have to be a special campaign-time to give money. Spend a little on yourself and go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation website and donate.

Creative Writer Award

2010-09-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

Milo James Fowler has just passed on Lesa's ~~Bald Faced Liar~~ "Creative Writer" Blogger Award to me. Thanks, Milo!

It's not all glamour, though. Accepting this award requires me to:

Thank the person who gave you the award and link to them.
Add the award to your blog.
Tell six outrageous lies about yourself and one truth. (Another variant: Tell six truths and one outrageous lie. YOU get to guess which variant I chose – and which statements are true, as well as which are lies.)
Nominate six creative liars/writers and post links to them.
Let your nominees know that they have been nominated.

Here is a list of either six outrageous lies about me and one truth, or six truths and one outrageous lie. I prefer to think of the "lies" as "creative writing", by the way.

Last year I saved my company $2.4M in just three months by spending less than $100 to change the type of "O"-ring used to connect all high-pressure hydraulic hoses.
I learned to fly a plane before I learned to drive a car.
I've turned down multiple offers for senior management roles within Rio Tinto because those roles would have given me a lot less time to write.
I lost 30kg (66lbs) over 18 months using the Weight Watchers program.
I have never had a speeding ticket.
I was the only person in my high school to study two foreign languages.
I have memorised the first three chapters of the Gospel of Luke in the King James Version, and I'm working on chapter four.

Use the comments section to guess which you think are true, and which you think are creative.

Passing on this award is tricky, because it seems that some people don't "do" awards. I guess there's no harm in nominating them anyway. Anyway, my nominations go to Angel Zapata, Erin Cole, Greg "Gladbloke" Bray, Quin Browne and Linda.

Apologies in advance if I've caused offence nominating, or not nominating anyone.

Happy guessing between the truths and creativities!

Real Threats

2010-09-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

Tim sat in the crowded departure lounge, flipping through a magazine, bored. He looked around every so often to see others also waiting, also bored. There was a TV mounted high on the wall showing an American soapie, with the sound muted, thankfully.

A young Indian-looking man came in, wearing a CIO Mining shirt like Tim's. He saw Tim, and made his way over. CIO was a multinational mining company; it was common for it's employees to meet each other randomly at airports.

"Hello," said the newcomer. "I'm Saleem. I'm an electrical grad up at Western Creek Coal." He sat down across from Tim, and put his laptop bag beside him. He had just the slightest trace of an accent.

"I'm Tim." He leaned forward and they shook hands across the aisle. "I do SAP support for all the Queensland and New South Wales coal sites."

Saleem smiled. "You must fly a lot, then."

Tim grinned. "Platinum frequent flyer, most years."

"That would drive me crazy," said Saleem. "No matter how much I fly, the security just frustrates me. I get the random explosive check every time I come through. I just had my carry-on searched, after the x-ray check."

"Really?" said Tim. "I've never had them go through my carry-on."

Saleem shrugged. "It's one of the hazards of looking like me, rather than you," he said, matter-of-factly. He added, "And having Muhammad as my first name doesn't help."

"Saleem's not your first name?"

"Where my family's from in Pakistan, Muhammad is every man's first name. Saleem is my second name; it's what I've always been called by."

"Well, I'm sorry if they give you a hard time just for that. I think security is important, but they shouldn't be targeting you just because of what you look like, or for your religion. That's just prejudice. Security should be focussed on real threats."

Tim realised he was starting to rant. He changed the subject, and asked Saleem if he'd been with CIO for long. Eighteen months, he said.

Suddenly Saleem asked, "Hey, are you Tim Murdoch?"

"Yeah, that's right."

Saleem smiled. "I've actually been meaning to give you a call – everyone says I should talk to you. I need your expertise on a project I'm working on."

Tim smiled back. He liked helping people with SAP problems, and he loved being seen as the go-to man. "What can I do you for?"

"I need your help to make a bomb," said Saleem.

Tim blinked. The people around fell silent. No one looked directly at them, but Tim could feel their eyes, and he wasn't good at feeling that type of thing. He coughed, then said softly, "You need my help for what?"

Saleem looked around, then back at Tim. "To make a bomb. Everyone says you're the one to talk to."

"Everyone?"

"Sure: my boss, other grads, lots of people. They say you've made more bombs than anyone else in CIO. That you make them quickly, and, most importantly as far as I'm concerned, you get them right, the first time."

The circle of quiet, nervous people had expanded now, like a ripple in a pond. The entire departure lounge was hanging on their every word, though everyone kept looking at their magazines and laptops, or at the TV, or out the window.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

Saleem looked bemused. "You're are the SAP guru, Tim Murdoch?"

Tim smiled, self-consciously. He liked being called a guru, though he'd never admit it, and he sometimes even pretended to complain about it. "Hardly a guru," he said, "but I know a thing or two about SAP."

"Then why don't you know about how to make bombs? I'm quite new to SAP myself, but I thought that building a Bill of Materials would be child's play for someone like you."

Tim almost choked. Of course: Bill of Materials. He always referred to Bills of Materials as "BOM's", for short. Everyone did. Saleem had been after his expertise, so why on earth had Tim thought he was talking about building a bomb?

"Oh," he said, after a few moments. "You mean you want my help to build a BOM!"

Saleem's mouth dropped open. "Isn't this what I've been saying for five minutes?" he said. He spoke quickly now, and louder, and his accent was becoming stronger. "I have all the parts and components. I just need you to help me build my BOM!"

Tim looked up then, and saw the security guards. There seemed to be a dozen, or more, coming at them from every direction.

This story was published this week in Issue 95 of Shift Miner Magazine This is also my #fridayflash for 17 September.
What's SAP? Almost all the readers of Shift Miner will know what SAP is; but you may not. SAP is one of the major "Business Management Software Applications". Among many other things, this type of software is used by mining companies (and other major corporations) to organise and track maintenance and other aspects of asset management. In industry, one of the steps of procuring a new piece of equipment is to set up the "BOMs" (Bills of Materials), so that the "system" has a record of all the parts, how many are stocked, and where to buy them. People in this part of the industry talk about BOMs ("bombs") all the time.

I'm sorry if the humour in this piece is too much of an "in-joke" ; however, I hope the underlying message still comes through.

Visiting Esme

2010-09-09T15:03:00.000-07:00

“Good morning Esme, how are you today?” said Jim, his voice bright and cheery. He looked into her face for a glimmer of recognition, but saw only cold mistrust.

“I'm fine, thank you very much,” said Esme loudly, peering up at him. “But, who are you? And what do you want?”

There were six patients at Whitman Park Aged Care Home, including Esme, whose religious affiliation was listed as “Presbyterian”. It was Jim’s right, and duty, as the local Presbyterian minister, to visit them each week. Jim did his visiting on Thursday mornings. It suited him as well as any other time. The old fogies that kept track of days and times appreciated the routine, and it made no difference to the others.

And then there was Esme. She had her good days and her bad days, but overall, Esme's dementia was a case of steady decline. On a good day she showed a vague sense of having met Jim before. It didn't help for him to insist that he had known her his whole life. Her responses to such notions were belligerent, and often violent.

After introducing himself as the minister, Jim won her affection with some licorice all-sorts. It was a cheap trick, but he always used it, because it worked.

“These are lovely,” she said. “I can’t say I’ve had them before, but they are just lovely.”

Esme told Jim she’d had a terrible night's sleep. “Those young people in the flat downstairs had their music on so loud, the whole night long,” she said. Her hands trembled as she spoke. “Not that I call it music. Bang, bang, bang! That's all it is. Noise. That's what it is: just noise. Something should be done about it. Someone should do something.” She dabbed at the edge of her mouth with a handkerchief.

Jim blinked. He was still not immune to the things that she could say. Whitman Park was a single-story complex, flat on the ground; there was no ‘downstairs’. He bit his lip and swallowed and prayed, quietly in his mind, for strength.

“I'm sorry to hear that Esme,” he said. “Tell you what: I'll have a good stern talk with them about it on my way home. I’ll make sure that it doesn't happen again. How does that sound?”

Esme smiled. Her glasses glinted as she sat up in her chair. “Oh, would you? Would you really?”

“Sure,” said Jim as he got up. He felt claustrophobic.

Esme asked him to stay a while longer. “You've only just got here.”

But Jim had to leave. He couldn’t make himself stay. He retreated, shuffling backwards through the door, and waved as he left. Esme stayed in her armchair, watching him go, looking bewildered.

Jim marched quickly through the corridors of Whitman Park, out into the fresh air, and towards his car. He leaned against the car and took deep breaths to calm himself down. He took a tissue from his pocket and wiped the tears from his face.

He still wasn’t sure if he had the faith or the strength it took to be a minister. They hadn't trained him for this sort of thing at the college, and God felt farther away than ever.

Visiting Esme was killing him. He did it because it was what he had promised to do, and to be, but he wished he was someone else. He wished that Esme would hurry up and die. Take her soon, Lord, please, he prayed, She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t even know her own son.

SlushPile Hell

2010-09-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

I just discovered SlushPile Hell today. It's about: One grumpy literary agent, a sea of query fails, and other publishing nonsense.

Most of the posts consist of a brief quote from a query letter, and an even briefer one-liner from the grumpy agent. Reading through the site, I almost wet myself laughing a couple of times. My kidneys are still sore.

The Artist's Secret

2010-09-06T17:03:00.000-07:00

In his recent blog post Comic FAIL, Dilbert creator Scott Adams describes why he thinks a recent Dilbert strip flopped with his audience. Why? Because he ignored "The Artist's Secret":

The Artist's Secret is that all art comes from abnormal brains. So if you create art that satisfies your own tastes, you have created for a market of exactly one abnormal person. If you're lucky, a handful of other freaks get some joy from your creations too. But it won't be enough to pay your bills. It's not a career until you learn to create products that normal people like.

As a writer with an abnormal brain, I think I have a lot to learn from this. I like to think other writers and people with abnormal brains read this blog sometimes, so that's why I'm sharing this with you.

The Realist

2010-09-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

The following scene is inspired by Three Word Wednesday number CCIV. The words are break, negative and surface, and are shown in bold below.

Piet didn't consider himself to be a negative person; a pessimist. He was a realist. He could objectively assess any situation. He looked below the surface of a problem, identifying the root causes, and therefore the cures. Yes, a realist.

But, as Piet thought about his marriage, and what it had become, and his prospects of making it once again what it once had been, there was little he could do except break down and cry; again.

After a few minutes, he could control his breathing better. He wiped his face and blew his nose and dropped the tissue alongside a pile of rubbish on the lounge-room floor. He looked around for his wallet and keys, then left for the bottle-shop. He'd be spending the evening with a bottle of Johnny Walker, again.

The Legend of Larry

2010-08-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever told a ghost story to scare the wits out of the gullible? Who hasn't? Perhaps you pass on the legends of the spirits that roam a place you've lived or worked. In any case, I hope you get a buzz out of this piece. The Legend of Larry was published yesterday in Issue 94 of Shift Miner Magazine.

The Legend of Larry
It was Damon's first tour on the crew when, at smoko on the first night-shift, Wazza began to tell him the Legend of Larry.

"Who's Larry?" asked Damon as he took his crib from the microwave, wincing at the heat.

"Larry was a rigger," said Wazza, then took a sip of his tea. "He worked on the construction project for this plant, back in the eighties. He died on the job." Wazza took a bite of his toast.

Damon's eyebrows shot up, and he sat down eagerly across the table. "How'd he die?"

Wazza kept his face looking serious. The young bloke was taking the bait nicely. "He fell, from the top, to the bottom."

"No harness?"

"Not in those days, kid. No harnesses, lanyards, EWPs. Too expensive, and slowed the job down. Riggers walked straight out on the I-beams, 30 metres in the air, no problems."

"But he fell?"

"Yeah. They pushed poor Larry."

Damon's mouth opened. "They pushed him off a beam?"

Wazza chuckled. "No, they worked him too hard. The project was behind schedule and over budget. So, they started a night-shift, and gave everyone the hurry-up. Larry had already worked the whole day-shift, but they were short on blokes, and offered him double time. On top of that, the lighting on the job was terrible, because they hadn't planned for night-shift."

Wazza took another sip from his tea, drawing the story out, and shook his head slowly. "They found where Larry slipped. A patch of grease had been spilled on the beam. It was left there, because of all the rush."

"Wow," said Damon, who'd been so rapt in the story, he hadn't touched his crib. He took a mouthful, and swallowed. "I'd hate to be the one that left that grease!"

Wazza stared hard back at Damon.

Damon's eyes opened wide. "It wasn't … you, was it?"

Wazza shook his head. "No, but I knew him. He fell apart; became a real mess. Still in jail, I think."

Damon went back to eating his meal. Wazza studiously ignored him while he finished his toast and tried to finish a sudoku in the newspaper someone had left on the table.

"Thanks for telling me about all that," said Damon. "I've always been real careful with working at heights, but that's a real good safety share."

Wazza shook his head slowly. "It's not a work-at-heights safety share, kid. You need to respect Larry, and look out for him. You need to let him get to know you."

Damon looked confused.

Wazza said, "He knows the rest of us, but he'll come visit you soon. New blood."

"Didn't you say he's dead?"

"His body is dead; saw that myself. But, his spirit will never rest. Can't be sure why, but I think he stays around to look after us."

Damon laughed. "You're telling me Larry's a ghost? That this is a haunted wash-plant?"

"I don't use those words," said Wazza, keeping his tone serious. "But yes, Larry's spirit wanders around this plant – especially on night-shifts. There's no other way to explain some of the things that have happened here, over the years."

Wazza rinsed off his cup and plant and went back out into the plant.

At about three in the morning, when Damon was hosing in on the ground floor, Wazza set up Larry on the floor above, beside the reject conveyor. He could barely keep from laughing as he tied lengths of thin rope through holes in the shoulders of an old high-vis raincoat.

He got in position where he could see Damon, his head down, watching the spray of water from the hose. Wazza dangled the raincoat over the edge and lowered it on the ropes so it came up just behind Damon. He reached out and swung the rope so the raincoat brushed against Damon's back.

Damon turned slowly, and faced the raincoat. He stood dead still. Then he looked straight up at Wazza; but Wazza didn't see Damon's face. Instead, of Damon's face there was a ghostly-white skull.

Wazza dropped the ropes and ran.

Damon took the mask off and stuffed it in his jacket. He smiled contentedly as he went back to hosing.

Edit: Typos as per John Wiswell's comments. Thanks, John.

People Need to Know

2010-08-22T04:05:00.000-07:00

My flash fiction story People Need to Know has been published by Every Day Fiction. Click here to read the story. Please take the time to rate the story out of five, and leave a comment at the Every Day Fiction site. This story is relatively controversial; I'm interested to know what you think.

Many thanks to the Every Day Fiction editor, Camille Gooderham Campbell, for taking this story on.

Farewell Speech

2010-08-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

No matter what industry or field you work in, you'll be familiar with the typical farewell morning tea. It's an interesting little ritual; a tradition that has caused me bemusement, amusement and weight-gain during my career so far. So, this got me thinking…

This story was published today in Issue 93 of Shift Miner Magazine.

Brad smiled politely and stood with his hands behind his back while Jim, the General Manger, spoke glowingly of Brad's achievements, his wonderful example, and the hole he would leave in the organisation when he left.

Inside, Brad was laughing; and he struggled to keep the laughing on the inside. It was all so beautifully ridiculous: Jim had been hunting Brad out of the mine for months. Their arguments were the stuff of legend. They had disagreed – often publicly – on almost everything: safety, production, costs. Despite all this, this little ceremony of Brad's farewell morning tea was a time of fond farewells, mutual admiration and back-slapping.

It was a bit like funerals, thought Brad. If you went to every funeral in the country for a whole year, you'd think that no bad people ever died. In life, people are hated, vilified, bashed, even killed; and yet, there's never a bad word said at a funeral. Maybe, sometimes, the deceased was "rough around the edges", "misunderstood", "unconventional", or a "larakin"; but few eulogies ever described someone as a completely useless, lazy prick who would rob his own mother if he could, and won't our lives all be better now that we're rid of him. Maybe at the wake – but never at the funeral.

Farewell speeches at work were like eulogies, thought Brad, except for a few added benefits. First: you're not dead – which is always a good thing – and you get to witness the whole farce. Better yet, the person forced to stand in front of anyone interested in you leaving – or at least interested in the free cakes – and talk about how wonderful you are in your boss. And Brad's boss was the one who despised him more than anyone. Watching Jim humiliate himself like this was pure joy.

"Now Brad and I haven't seen eye to eye on every issue," said Jim. Brad didn't snort, though someone up the back did, which cause a ripple of nervous laughter through the group. They had to stay and work for Jim; they hadn't found other jobs, yet.

Jim continued, his face a little redder. "But that doesn't mean I didn't respect a man like Bad who has the integrity and the passion to stand for what he truly believes in."

Wow, thought Brad, that man should got into politics. He's wasted running a coal mine. The coal mine's wasted with him running it, in any case.

Brad looked around the group while Jim rambled on. He had few friends left here:he'd had few to start with. Then those he'd liked, respected and enjoyed working with had moved on to greener pastures.

For many, greener pastures didn't mean bigger numbers on payslips, but more satisfying roles, or less stress, or living near a university for the kids to attend.

Now, it was Brad's turn. Greener pastures for him meant going back to the Hunter Valley, were he'd come from. He'd only come up here because his wife had wanted more money. The divorce had been quick – surgical – and now there was nothing left to keep him up here in this hot, dry, hell, working for that thick-headed egomaniac.

"Brad?" It was Jim.

Brad realised he'd been day-dreaming, and it was time for his response speech.

"Sorry," he said. "I was lost in thought."

And suddenly, he didn't have the strength for all this crap. So he smiled, took a piece of carrot cake, and walked away.

A Part of This Australian Society

2010-08-09T03:52:00.000-07:00

This is my latest story in edition 92 of Shift Miner Magazine. The online version of this edition is here. Enjoy!

"Have you been in Australia long, Dr Ramji?"

"Please Mark, just be calling me Ramji. I have been here twelve years. I came first to study medicine at UQ."

"Wow." Mark was lying face down on the examination bench, waiting for Ramji to remove a mole from the back of his leg.

"Can you feel that?" said Ramji.

"Feel what?"

"Good, the anaesthetic is working just fine. I was poking your leg with the point of my scalpel."

"Well, I didn't feel a thing. You can start now, I suppose."

"I am already starting, Mark. Please be lying very still."

Mark lay very still. The pulling and tugging as Ramji cut into his leg felt weird. "Can I ask you a personal question, Ramji?"

"Sure. Normally it is I that is asking the personal questions."

Mark laughed, and relaxed a little. "Are you a Muslim; is that why you have that … your head covered?"

"No, Mark," said Ramji, "I am not a Muslim. This is a turban I have on my head. I am Sikh."

"You're sick?"

"No, I am not ill. I am a Sikh. It is a religion, from my native India."

"Fair dinkum?" said Mark. "I though it was mainly Muslims in India."

"Actually, Hindus are by far making up the biggest Indian religion. Then there are many others, like Muslims, and Christians, and us Sikhs, and many, many others. I am ready to start your suturing now."

"My what?"

"Your sutures. Stitches."

"Cool. I suppose you have a lot of people ask about your turban?"

"Actually, no. You are the first in about one year. I am thinking people are scared they will be offending me."

"Have I offended you?"
"
Good gracious, no."

"That good."

Ramji laughed. "Yes," he said. "Especially as it is I that is having the scalpel."

Mark laughed too.

Ramji said, "May I ask what are your religious beliefs, Mark?"

"I've got to say, I don't like religions, myself."
"Oh?"

"It causes so much conflict."

"That is true; there is much religious conflict. But then, people are always finding some things to be fighting about. Stopping the religions is not enough to be stopping all the wars. Your leg is all finished now Mark."

Mark sat up on the bench and looked at the dressing on his leg and poiked at the skin around it, feeling where the anaesthetic had deadened his leg. "So what's your answer?"

"To make world peace?"

"To stopping religious violence, and conflict."

"Respect, and freedom, and not taking revenge. I have the freedom to be a Sikh without fear; and my neighbour, a Christian, and my other neighbour, perhaps like you, with having no religion at all."

"But aren't people always killing each other about religion in India?"

"True, it is happening sometimes," said Ramji, his head rocking from side to side. "That is one very big reason for why I am loving Australia. I did not stay here for the taste of the food."

Mark laughed, but he wasn't convinced. "But doesn't people coming here, and keeping their own religions, stop them from being part of Australian society?"

Ramji made a tut-tut sound. "Mark, my friend, I am a doctor, here in Emerald, removing a mole and maybe cancer from your leg. Am I not right now being a part of this Australian society?"

A Fool

2010-07-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

"Oh, Cynthia," he said, his voice soft and crooning, as he drew her to his side. "You are the source of all my hope, my joy. You are my inspiration!"

She pushed her hand hard against his chest. "Gerald," she said. "You are a fool."

"Just a fool for you, my love."

"No Gerald," she said. "You are a fool in your own right. Go to your wife now, or else I shall."

This little scene was inspired by Sunday Scribblings number 224. The word was source.

Farewell Tour

2010-07-18T19:36:00.000-07:00

Ted stood in the muster area, as the sun began to dawn, as he had hundreds of times before. Today he was alone; there was no shift change. There was no oncoming crew bantering and rustling with crib bags and drink bottles; there was no off-going crew tired and dirty handing over achievements and concerns; there were no engineers or planners or superintendents, all in a mild panic, trying to find out why things hadn't gone to plan, chasing precious paperwork, and passing on newer, grander plans.

The crew vehicles were parked in a row, silent. No one was doing the shiftly pre-start checks or complaining about the mud and rubbish left inside by the last mongrel crew. The safety board showed two days since the last injury. It hadn't been touched since the day North Creek Mine had been shut down.

The mine had been the biggest part of Ted's life; his whole life, really. He had lost that, when the front gates were closed and locked, fifteen days ago. Head office had chosen to shut the place down, and he'd found out at on the same day as everyone else.

He'd taken it hard. He held it together, until he was alone, and then he cried like a baby. He felt ashamed, to bawl like that.

He hadn't been able to sleep last night. In the early hours of the morning, he came back to the mine, to have one last look around; to say goodbye, properly. In the dark, he cut his way through the boundary fence. He walked the corridors and buildings and paths. He breathed in the smell of mud, diesel, grease, rubber and smouldering, heating coal as he roamed his mine. He touched the wheels of the mammoth rear-dump trucks, parked in rows on the go-line. He gathered memories.

As he walked through the plant, the wind blew in gusts, howling through the structure and the conveyor gantries and in and around the yard machines. Ted had never before heard that sound in the plant. The plant had roared when it was running, and during shut-downs the sound of the machines was replaced by rattle-guns, hammers, grinders, cranes and men. Now, the plant was silent, and the wind took its turn to be heard.

Through the early hours, Ted walked, and thought, and comforted himself with familiar sights, and saw some things around the mine he'd never seen before.

He'd gone to the muster area just before the dawn. He stood and watched lightening sky and listened to the crows as they fought over what was left in the bins.

He heard footsteps then. He stepped around the corner to avoid getting caught.

"There you are Ted," called a familiar voice. The footsteps quickened.

Ted went back and saw David, his overburden superintendent, and the closest thing he had to a friend.

"G'day."

David smiled. "Saw you before, lurking around," he said. "I've been on a bit of a farewell tour myself."

They stood quietly together and looked around. Then Ted said suddenly, "I'd do things differently, you know, if I could do it all over again."

David nodded, and grunted.

"I pushed, and pushed, for tonnes. That was my job. But I pushed until something broke." He sighed.

David said nothing.

Ted went on, "I said safety was the number one priority; but I didn't want people to believe me, and they didn't. I pushed tonnes, tonnes and tonnes. But I couldn't squeeze the volume through this place that it needed to turn a decent profit."

"But you tried."

Ted grunted.

They stood together in the cool quiet and the minutes passed. Ted could hear the clock on the wall ticking. He read the signs posted on the walls, as if for the first time.

A few tears escaped from Ted's eyes. He wiped them quickly with his shirtsleeve before David could notice. He didn't like to blubber; he just felt so depressed, like his life was over. His career was in tatters. He'd had little effect on production, he'd lost control of costs, and now two me were dead and a third would never walk again.

Ted hated who he was. He hated that he was crying about his mine and his career, and not about the men whose lives he had risked, and lost, and wrecked. He hated that he was crying at all.

Ted spat into the dirt. "I'm going home, before the rent-a-cops catch me."

David nodded. "Me too."

They shook hands, promised to keep in touch – both knowing that they wouldn't – and walked away.

This story appeared today in the Five Minute Fiction column of Issue 91 of Shift Miner Magazine. I've often thought of what it would be like to walk around a mine that was a big part of your life, and was then shut down. Imagine all the things that were once important, that now don't even exist.

A More Gentle Creature

2010-07-14T18:38:00.000-07:00

"I think a man should be gentle," she said, not looking directly at him. "Strong, and bold, of course; but especially gentle."

"Indeed," he said. "How intriguing. I agree that a man possessing strength and boldness is worthy of some praise; but there is no call for gentleness. That is an attribute more fitting for a lady, I should think."

She laughed. "A lady should appear gentle," she said, "but can never be so, if she is to survive in this world."

"And what then of a man, that is both strong and bold - as you require - but is not truly gentle?"

"Such a man," said she, turning to face him directly, "is vulgar."

He knew that she had said, in not so many words, that such a man was he. He hid his humiliation by turning and leaving, in search of a more gentle creature, with eyes that might adore, rather than pierce him.

This little scene is my response to Three Word Wednesday number CXCVII. The prompting words are gentle, praise and vulgar.

No Big Deal

2010-07-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

No Big Deal appears in Issue 90 of Shift Miner Magazine. This is the first of my Shift Miner stories that isn't directly mining-related. I think most people who have travelled long-distance with their family should be able to relate to this. This especially includes those of us working in residential remote-area mining jobs.

"It's not such a big deal to drive to Brisbane," said Susie.

Bruce wasn't so sure. They'd done long distances before, but never with the two kids. "Okay," he agreed. They had to go to Susie's father's seventieth birthday part. Susie thought flying was too expensive, so they took the people-mover. Bruce decided to take the inland road. "Less cars, cops and other problems," he said.

Bruce had bought a portable DVD player with two screens. "That'll keep 'em busy," he said. It kept Bruce busy for a about an hour while he worked out how to set it up. Once they were out of town, Susie told the kids they could play their movie.

Dylan said, "Mum, it doesn't work."

"What do you mean?"

"The DVD player doesn't work."

"What's it doing?"

"It's not playing."

Discussion became yelling as Susie tried to diagnose the problem from the front-seat. Bruce pulled over. "Let's see what the matter is."

Bruce took out the DVD and looked at it. It had some kind of muck on the shiny side. "What's all this on the DVD?" he asked the kids. Dylan and Peter put on their confused faces and shrugged their shoulders. Susie found Bruce a tissue and he used some spit and polish to clean up the disc.

The DVD player kept the kids quiet, as planned. The movie itself wasn't so quiet. Yelling, laughter, crying and music poured out off from the two screens. "Turn it down," they called out from the front, a few times.

"Good little speakers," said Bruce, quietly.

Susie said, "Maybe we can get some headphones in Brisbane."

"Good idea."

After an hour on the road, they came to some road-works. The speed limit dropped to 80, then 60, then 40. "We'll be parked up soon, if this keeps up," said Bruce. He saw a lollipop-man sign saying "Prepare to Stop" and swore very quietly to himself.

"Settle down, dear," said Susie.

"I'm settled." Bruce looked in the rear-view. A few cars were banking up, then a new blue ute came around the outside. "What's this idiot doing? There's a truck coming the other way."

The ute overtook the cars behind Bruce. The driver must have seen the truck, his brake lights flashed on. The cars ahead were bunched close together now. There wasn't any space for the blue ute. Bruce hit his own brakes, hard. Peter shouted from the back seat. The truck driver flashed his lights. The ute pulled in front of Bruce. Bruce muttered to himself.

"What was that dear?"

"I said, 'Tanker'. The truck that almost took out that idiot is a fuel tanker."

Amazing, thought Bruce. We stare death in the face, and she ups me about my language.

It wasn't long after the road-works that Dylan said he felt sick. Bruce asked how sick, and did he need to throw up? Before he could answer, Dylan threw up.

Bruce and Susie used an old pack of baby-wipes to clean the worst of it. Susie did most of the cleaning, while Bruce tried to stop their children from suiciding on the highway, or throwing rocks at each other or passing cars. "Throw them out there at a tree, or something," he said. Evidently, trees were boring.

They hit the roo about half-way to Brisbane. "I didn't think roos came out in the middle of the day," said Bruce as he pulled over and turned off the engine.

"It would seem that they do," said Susie.

Very helpful dear, thank you, thought Bruce.

The roo had only glanced off the bumper. Bruce took his small axe out of the back of the car and went hunting for the roo to give it some euthanasia. He gave up looking after ten minutes. Susie didn't ask why he kept an axe in the car, which was a pity because he'd thought of a great come-back for that.

Bruce tried to make up some time. He got a speeding ticket just outside of Miles. Susie didn't say anything, which was good, thought Bruce.

Not far from Toowoomba it started raining. The window-wipers worked, but only just. The Central Highlands sun had toasted the wiper blades. Bruce thought that Susie might want to criticise his lack of maintenance and preparation, so he said, "Wiper blades are pretty expensive. And I checked the weather, and it said it'd be all fine."

"I didn't say anything," said Susie.

They arrived, finally, at Susie's parent's place. Susie's dad gave Bruce a hearty handshake. "I'm glad you guys could come," he said. "Susie said you might fly, but I suppose it's no big deal to just jump in the car and drive, is it?"

Lone Rider

2010-06-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

Recently I put a story called Lone Rider up at the Six Sentences social site. The theme is something different for me, but does it work?

A Quick Response is a Good Response

2010-06-22T18:26:00.000-07:00

Every writer gets rejections. Lots of them. I won't complain about that fact, right now. Every writers waits weeks and months for some of their rejections. I'm not talking about novels: even short story and flash fiction submissions can take months to get rejected.

We'd all like to get quick responses to our submissions. In his post memorial day miracle, fellow writer and blogger Milo James Fowler recently told of how he wrote, revised and submitted a story and then received an acceptance all in the same day. That doesn't happen often, and the story is truly inspirational.

Yes, we'd all like to get a quick response to our submissions. I have my own quick-response story to share. Last Saturday night I finished re-revising and editing a previously-rejected 400-word flash fiction piece. It's more of a scene, or a vignette, than a standard beginning-middle-end story, which was the stated reason for the first rejection. Using my head, and duotrope's digest, I identified the perfect market; one that loves short sketchy scenes and vignettes. I was a shoe-in. I e-mailed my submission, and like Milo, received a same-day response. Same hour response, actually. To be precise, the return e-mail came 13 minutes after my submission e-mail.

The response was not positive.

So no, a quick response is not always a good response. Sometimes it feel like a slap in the face with a wet towel. Sometimes you spend a week thinking, "Thirteen minutes? That's crazy! Thirteen minutes... how can...?"

Two Year Plan

2010-06-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

This story was published today in Issue 89 issue of Shift Miner Magazine. I hope this isn't your story too...

Callum and Mary had money problems. They weren't in debt, except for their credit card, but each fortnight was a struggle. They tried not to argue about money, but sometimes they did. One Friday evening, Mary put her solution to Callum. “I think we should do two or three years in the mines,” she said.

Mary had dropped hints like this before, and Callum had been able to deflect them, till now. He loved his job, and his friends were in Rocky. So were hers. “What about your friends,” he asked her.

“I think we need to make a small sacrifice for a while. We can still come into Rocky to socialise, and shop, every month or so.”

Mary took Callum through the numbers. “If we live on what we do now, plus a bit, we should be able to save two-thousand dollars a month. In two years, we could save seventy-eight thousand dollars; more with interest.

That got Callum's attention. He applied for six jobs from Saturday's paper. Over the next weeks, he got three interviews and an offer with a contractor based in Moranbah. He accepted it.

The plan took an early hit when they went to find a house. Rents were a little higher than they'd expected. “This is extortion,” said Callum.

The property manager mumbled something about supply and demand. They paid the rent, every week, because they needed a place to live. Still, it felt dirty paying that sort of money.

The rent wasn't the end of it. “Can you believe tomatoes cost six dollars a kilo here?” said Mary, after Callum's first day on the job.

“Is that bad?” said Callum. “It's been a while since I bought a tomato.”

“Yes, it's bad.”

It wasn't just tomatoes that were more expensive; everything was.

The first pay-packet had some surprises, too. “Are you sure this is right?” said Callum, as he went though the pay-slip. They must be taking too much tax, surely!”

They decided to sacrifice the discounted private health insurance that came with the package to save more money. It turned out that the Medicare levy surcharge – the extra tax for not having private health insurance – costed more than the insurance itself.

Mary crunched the numbers again. “I think we can still save thirty-thousand in two years,” she said.

The trips to Rocky didn't really happen. The first attempt cost them just over five hundred dollars, not including the shopping. They went to Mackay to shop, but decided to try and avoid that. Still, they needed to get out of town sometimes to keep from going nuts.

Other things helped, to keep them sane. Mary didn't need much convincing to get a big flat-screen TV. They negotiated a good price on a surround sound system, to complete the home theatre setup. Sometimes Mary got her hair or nails done in town, just for something to do. When their station wagon went north of two-hundred thousand kilometres, they leased a Prado.

When they finished their their two years; they had saved only ten thousand dollars. “Well, we improved and upgraded a lot of things,” said Callum. “And we had our first overseas holiday.”

Callum said maybe they should do another two years, and really knuckle down and save. Mary did mention the idea of going overseas, to somewhere like Indonesia, to really save some serious money, but Callum managed to avoid that subject, so far.

It's Got to That Stage

2010-06-14T20:39:00.000-07:00

The two old ladies carried their coffees to the only table in the crowded airport café with spare seats. A young man was already at the table, hammering away at the keys to his laptop computer, drinking a beer. He tried to ignore them.

One of the ladies was clearly younger than the other, and plumper. She said, "I've got a perfectly good computer at home, but I don't use it."

The older, skinny lady said, "I'll have to get lessons, to use mine."

"It's only just for emailing all my children."

"I've got a perfectly good computer, but I don't need all the other jazz. I can't be bothered; too many other things on my mind."

The younger lady nodded. "Too much else to do."

"I'm going down to…," said the older lady, then hesitated.

"Urangan."

"Yes, Urangan. My youngest daughter is there, and all her little ones."

The plumper lady looked at the lunch board. "They have special lunches for seven dollars ninety."

"That's good. Sophie has a little boy at school there. I don't think Felix has started school yet."

"Do you know what street she's in?" asked the younger lady, still eying the menu.

The older lady reached down for her purse.

"No, no, don't get it."

"I've no idea," said the older lady, going through the purse.

"Don't worry. I just wondered if she lived near me."

"I stay with my son and his wife. I have so much fun with my great-grandchildren." She continued looking through the purse.

The younger lady admitted, "I don't have any greats yet. Just grandchildren."

"I've got six grand and six great," said the older lady. She was distracted now. "I haven't got her address. I know its Urangan."

"Please, don't worry."

"I thought I had it." She continued looking through her purse for a few moments, then put it away.

The plump lady said, "It might be one of the new estates."

"No, they bought a two-storey house."

"Townhouse. They're popping up everywhere."

"No, I don't think it's new."

The younger lady said, "My son in law runs the sky diving place."

"There used to be a young chap in the unit next to me. His daughter used to sky-dive. He was working for this flying school attached to the air port. It was a tiny little airport."

"Is Melbourne home for you?"

"Ah," said the older lady. She paused, and groaned. "I live there, yes"

"What part of Melbourne are you in?"

"Albion."

"My daughter is in Hillside."

"Oh yes?" said the older lady.

"That's not far from Albion. She's a manager at Coles there."

"Oh, I don’t go to Coles, as it is. I go to Safeway."

"I go to Woolies. Which is Safeway up here."

The older lady didn't respond, so the younger one added. "It's got to that stage, I only see her once a year."

"Well, I haven't seen Sofie and the children since Easter."

"Oh."

Published at Full of Crow!

2010-06-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

Standing Up For Peace is a very short flash fiction piece of mine that has just been published in the July 2010 Quarterly Issue of Full of Crow Fiction. Many thanks to Lynn Alexander, the editor, for including this piece. Best wishes also to Paul Corman-Roberts, who is now taking on the role of editor of the Full of Crow Fiction Section.

Please have a read of the July 2010 Issue. I hope you enjoy Standing Up For Peace, and I look forward to your comments.

Someone is Wrong on the Internet

2010-06-11T01:01:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it. Sometimes, when I'm feeling annoyed, melancholic or even bored, I'll go and anyone someone on the internet. I'm not a troll at all: I'm always polite, on topic, and of course, I'm always right. It's just that there's so much that's wrong out there, and from time to time I'll feel the need to fix it.

I was thinking about this today, which made me remember a comic that I'd once seen. Just remembering it made me laugh, so I looked it up on the internet, just for you:

(Image embedded from here).

His Job

2010-06-10T19:52:00.000-07:00

He walked into the office, to his cubicle. His cubicle was immaculate, his desk clear and clean. He put his bag down and went to the kitchenette to put his lunch in the fridge and make a cup of coffee. He carefully measured out the coffee, filled the cup with boiling water, and then added the milk and sugar. He smiled as he added the milk. He'd started adding the milk after the water when he'd heard Glenda the receptionist loudly insist that the milk should always be added first.

"Otherwise, you'll burn the coffee," she'd say.

He went to his cubicle and started his computer and began to look busy. After an hour he picked up a clipboard and some envelopes and made his face look stern and marched down the corridor

When he was in the elevator by himself, he smiled. He loved his job. It gave him the time he needed to work on his novel, and he knew he was next in line for an opening in middle-management created by complications with Nick's triple-bypass.

The number four lit on the elevator and it stopped and the doors opened. He put on his serious face and marched down towards Tracy's cubicle to ask her out to dinner Friday night.

Spiral: A Definition

2010-06-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

A spiral is a straight line, increasingly diverted from its intended course. See also: circle, and curve.

Curve: A Definition

2010-06-07T20:22:00.001-07:00

A curve is that part of a straight line that is diverted from its intended course, provided the diversion does not reach or exceed 360°, in which case the straight line is consistently diverted, and is therefore a circle.

Rent Money is Dead Money

2010-06-06T19:24:00.001-07:00

This story appears in today's 88th edition of Shift Miner Magazine. You can read the current issue, and a number of back issues, here.

I haven't had any hate-mail yet; but I'll keep you all informed.

Matt was happy to live in a rented house. He didn't plan to spend his whole working life in the mines, and there was less financial risk than buying. Matt was happy renting, but Jo, his wife, wasn't. "Rent money is dead money," she'd say.

After a few months of persuasion, Matt wasn't so happy to rent any more either. They'd been saving more money than he'd thought, and if the mining boom kept up they might even make a tidy non-taxable capital gain. They talked about what they wanted in a house, and started looking. Jo found a place on Maraboon Street that she liked the look of, and booked an inspection with Dawn, the real estate agent. Matt got off work early to come along.

Dawn was a plump, middle-aged lady in a slightly too small black skirt. She had a bubbly personality, and wore too much jewellery, perfume and make-up. She was too much all round, Matt thought; but he smiled, shook her hand, and got in the back seat of her car beside Jo.

In a few minutes they were outside the Maraboon Street place. "Can we go in now?" asked Jo, unlocking her seatbelt.

"No, this house is occupied. We need to give the tenants a few days notice first."

Jo said nothing. Matt was confused, and asked her, "Didn't you make this appointment last week, so we could look inside that house?"

Jo nodded and shrugged. Matt shook his head.

Dawn perked up. "I've got a great home I can show you around that I think is really undervalued. No tenants. I've got the keys here." She took them to a house near the river.

Matt looked suspiciously up an down the street. He'd seen the peak river levels in this area during the 2008 flood. "We're not interested in areas that were affected by the flood," he said.

Dawn said, "You can still get flood insurance for this property."

"Our flood insurance will be to buy a house that wasn't half filled with water."

She didn't seem to like that, but wasn't easily put off. She jostled out toward the house to open it up.

Jo shrugged again. "We may as well look inside while we're here."

There were a lot of things that Matt felt like saying, but he held them all in, and was almost immediately glad that he had. He let Jo lead him by the hand into the house.

Dawn showed them around. The place had two bedrooms and a two-way bathroom. They wanted three bedrooms and an en suite.

"I should tell you, said Dawn, "that there was termite damage found during the repairs after the flood."

Matt snorted, and got two dirty looks. He commented that it didn't look like a very big block. "How many square metres is it?"

"I'm not exactly sure," said Dawn.

"Approximately?"

"I've got all that in the car," she said. "I'll look it up for you. It has a lovely gourmet kitchen."

Matt thought his head was going to explode. "Hold it right there," he said, raising his hands in the air. "I really need to clear some things up."

Dawn looked at him expectantly; plastic smile in place.

"We may not have been clear enough. We are interested only in three bedroom houses, with an en suite, on at least a 700 square metre block, in areas not affected by the 2008 flood. Do you have any houses meeting those criteria?"

Jo looked either embarrassed or about to laugh. Matt could see Dawn's mask slipping.

"Yes," she said after a moment. "The home on Maraboon Street."

"Great. And when Jo called you last week, did she say that we wanted to inspect that property during this appointment today?"

"She was certainly interested, but they really are asking too much for that place. Especially for a lovely young couple like yourselves, buying your first place. This home here is really affordable, and I think, quite undervalued."

Matt realised that his prejudice against estate agents had just became a genuine loathing. He took a deep breath in, and then out. "I think we're done here," he said at last, and walked out of the house towards the car.

A Good Book

2010-06-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

The word for Sunday Scribblings No. 218 is "mess". This is my micro-sized story.

He went to his bedroom and made his bed. He made it very neatly, so that the blankets were tight across the mattress. He picked up all of his toys and clothes from the floor. Clean up your mess, he said to himself, over and over, as he worked. He said this in his head, not out loud. He was careful not to make much, but was very quiet as he tidied and sorted.

When the room was perfect, he sat on the floor in the corner and read his book. The book was good. He could imagine himself as one of the people in the book, in another place. When he was reading a good book like that, he couldn't hear the real-world sounds, like his parents yelling at each other.

Legend in His Own Lunchbox

2010-06-05T01:57:00.000-07:00

I wrote this story, published in Shift Miner Magazine, as a response to a challenge. I blogged about this story here, but only provided a link to the on-line version of the magazine. By popular request, the full text of the story appears below.

"So, how's business Nathan?" asked Julie. Nathan had been her boss until he'd left to start his own company just over a year ago. Julie had stepped up to take his old role as Maintenance Superintendent of Freshwater Coal. Nathan was a bit of a diamond in the rough, but she still cared enough to ask how things were going.

Nathan smiled and smoothed his hand over his mostly-bald head. "Fantastic," he said. "Can't get the men or materials to meet demand." He added with a bit of a smirk, "You must be pretty jealous, huh Julie?"

Not again. She'd thought Nathan was just cruising around site, flying the flag and trying to win some more work. Instead, he was starting his "small cog and big wheel" routine. Julie was sick of it. "Why would I be jealous, Nathan?" she asked.

"I know what it's like in that job," said Nathan. "You're a small cog in a big wheel, inside an even bigger machine. It's the same with all the multinationals. Unless you're head of Australian operations on a million bucks a year, you're a nobody."

"And you're not a nobody, I suppose?"

Nathan looked shocked at the thought. "Of course not. I'm numero uno: the man in charge. I run my own company, and I'm my own boss. I'm not hidden away in a big corporation reporting to numb-skulls any more." He pointed vaguely towards the administration building.

"No, now your hidden away in your own company."

Nathan's jaw began to hang a bit low. Julie had never talked to him like that when he was her boss, of course. Poor bloke; she almost felt sorry for him. "It's not like you've become an international super-star. You're a legend in your own lunch box. You've got ten blokes working for you now, right?"

"Eleven, actually." Nathan pulled on his goatee.

"Fine. With supervisors, planners, engineers, trades and others, I have 23. What's your annual turnover: one and a half million dollars?"

Nathan's forehead was covered in sweat. "Just under $1.7 million."

"Great. My budget this year is $18 million. How much of your work this last twelve months came from just my department? Fifty percent?"

"More like forty," said Nathan. His face was red.

Julie thought it was probably more like sixty, but she let it go. "That means that I'm your boss 40% of the time, and I can sack you at any moment by only inviting quotes from other suppliers. You're not your own boss: your customers are your bosses now."

Nathan looked like he'd had enough. "Look, what's your point," he said softly.

"My point?" said Julie. "My point is that there's nothing wrong with being a lowly superintendent, or a fitter, or an operator in a multinational mining company. I – we – like to be a small part of something big. That doesn't make our part any smaller than yours. You've chosen to be a big part of something small. If what you're doing makes you happy, that's fine. Just don't assume that the rest of the world is insanely jealous and wants to be like you. And please, don't try to put me down for what I've chosen to do." Julie smiled, then added, "Especially when I'm 40% of your boss."

Nathan slunk out of her office. They got on fine after that.

Jack be Nimble

2010-06-02T21:02:00.000-07:00

"I've got a theory about women," said Allan.

"Do tell," said Reg.

"All women hate me," said Allan. He lit a smoke. "They've made some sort of pact."

"You idiot."

"What?"

"That's not a theory," said Reg. "That's a hypothesis."

"You're red hot, you are."

"What?"

"I'm pouring my heart out here," said Allan, "and you pick on my grammar."

"It's not your grammar what's wrong; it's your choice of words."

"You never give, do you?"

"I consider myself to be most generous," said Reg, "but, if I'm right and you're wrong, I will not budge."

"Forget women; I need a theory about you."

"You mean a hypothesis?"

"You need to loosen up. You need to be kinder, and a bit more flexible; not so quick to jump on people."

"Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick."

"You are certifiably insane."

"That's a theory."

This story was written with the inspiration of Three Word Wednesday Issue CXCII. The words are: budge, nimble and theory.

Circle: A Definition

2010-06-02T20:18:00.000-07:00

A circle is a straight line, consistently diverted from its intended course.

The Mantra

2010-05-31T03:44:00.000-07:00

"Do you have a mantra, Alf?" asked Jim.
"A flamin' what?" said Alf. He turned from looking at the girls playing pool in the corner of the bar, to face his mate.
"A mantra. Something you repeat, to give you strength. To direct your life, and concentrate your energy."
Alf thought about this for a moment, then held up his glass. "Beer," he said, then drained the glass.
"Flamin' what?"
"Beer," said Alf wiping his mouth. "That's what I say, when I'm tired, and need to concentrate, to get through the day."
"Beer isn't a mantra, Alf."
"Why not?"
"It's just a word. It's a drink. It's a beautiful thing, for sure, but it ain't a mantra. A mantra is a phrase that you repeat again, and again. And again."
"But I do."
"You do what?"
"I repeat it," said Alf. "again, and again. I say to myself, 'Beer, beer, beer, beer.' Just quietly, right, but it's fantastic. It really helps me... concentrate my energy."
"You're a Philistine, Alf."
"Thanks Jim. You're a good bloke too. Now, I think it's your shout."

This has been a Sunday Scribblings response to No. 217 (Mantra).

Big Weekend

2010-05-25T19:44:00.000-07:00

My contribution to Edition 87 of Shift Miner Magazine was called Big Weekend. I hope you enjoy it.

Big Weekend
Pete stood alone in the soft glow of the dawn at the bus-stop, waiting for the shift-bus. He had a jacket on, but even that wasn't enough to keep out the cold. Winter was coming quick.

Someone came round the corner, walking towards Pete, smoking a cigarette. It was Will. He stopped a few metres from Pete and said G'day quietly as he looked down the street for the bus.

Pete said, "You look shattered."

"Yeah, big weekend."

"What'd you get up to?"

Will drew hard on his smoke. "Friday was a few quiet ones at Smithy's place. Followed by a few more. Didn't get home till about three."

"Good time?"

Yeah, not too bad. Slept through Saturday, though." Will threw his cigarette butt on the ground, then quickly lit another. He liked to get as much nicotine into himself as he could before the forty-minute bus-ride to site.

"And Saturday?" said Pete. "You get up to much?"

Will managed a grin. "Oh yeah. We went hard on Saturday night. Starting drinking at our place, for a while, to get limbered up. Then we went up the Tavern."

"Drinking before drinking?"

Will gave Pete a dirty look. "Too expensive to get completely rat-faced at pub prices. Can't smoke out, either. There was a band at the Tav, too. They sounded pretty good; I think."

Pete thought an iPod would have sounded good to Will when he was that well lubricated, but he said nothing.

Will continued. "We started doing shots there, which was fun, until it got a little out of hand. We stayed at the Tavern till we got kicked out."

"Too drunk?"

"No, closing time. Funny thing, I was sure I went home after that. At least I think I was going to."

"So what happened?"

"I can't rightly remember, but it looks like we went down to The Arms after that."

Pete grimaced. The only attractive feature of The Arms was that it had the latest closing time in town, and 1980s prices. A rough joint, but you could stay later, and get drunker.. "You can't remember what you did?"

Will smirked. "It was too big a night to remember. I saw the pictures on Facebook though; it was The Arms alright. We got hammered. A really good night. Very big night."

"You get sick?"

"At least a few times. Smithy seemed to think that was the best thing to take photos of."

Pete shook his head. Smithy had developed a talent for drinking photography over the last few years. It was kind of like wildlife and action photography combined. Tired of not remembering what he did the night before, Smithy had started taking pictures along the way with his phone camera. He could still take good pictures when he was so drunk he couldn't walk. Facebook had made Smithy's photos of his escapades accessible to the world. A lot of people logged in to see what they and their friends had been up to, but couldn't remember.

Will looked down the street. "Bus's coming," he said, as he lit his last smoke.

Pete said, "You have such big weekends. You must hate Mondays."

"Not at all, mate. I need a week at work to get away from it all and recover. A man needs some rest in life."

Miner's Wife Part II

2010-05-21T03:25:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote a Six Sentence (6S) story called Miner's Wife Part II. It's hard to say a lot in six sentences, and I've really tried to in this one. As someone who works at a coal mine, I can't help thinking about what happens in the lives of those who lose someone to an accident. I've never been close to it, and never want to. As a writer, I just try to imagine, and this is horror enough for me.

The story is here.

The Swallows Came Back Today

2010-05-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

The swallows came back today. I saw them as soon as I left my front door. I love to watch the swallows. They dive and whirl and seem to have so much fun. They don't care if you stand and watch them. Their colours are beautiful, if you can track one with your eyes for long enough to really see them. You might think they're a bit bland at first - just black and white - but they're not. Their feathers are black and white but also grey and silver in every shade.

I wonder what made them come back? Years ago, when they first appeared, I thought perhaps they migrated for the winter, but it's not that simple. There's no pattern to when they'll come or go. They might come three times in one year, or take three years between visits. Suddenly they are here, just a dozen or so at first. Over the next days and weeks their numbers will double again and again. Then their numbers will keep halving in the same way. One day - and I know it's coming even as I see the first of them flitting in the morning sun - they'll all be gone.

I can never be certain, once they've gone, that they'll ever come back. How can I? I don't know what brought them here, what will make them leave. It saddens me that their departure is so certain, while their return is so tentative. Even after twenty years, I still can't be sure.

While I walk, one of the swallows chases a small moth closely like a fighter plane. It banks left and right, up and down, intent on its prey. It almost brushes my face. I shout in surprise, and then laugh at the joy of it, and my own reaction. I look around, but everyone else on the street ignores me. They seem to be ignoring the swallows too.

I'm glad the swallows came back today. I'd like to tell Julie, my wife; she'd like to know. She loved the swallows, too. I don't know what made Julie come into my life either. I don't know why the cancer came to take her. But while I had her, I knew from the lesson of the swallows that, despite the joy we shared, her departure, one day, would be certain. It was sooner than I'd hoped, but later than it could have been.

Days Off

2010-04-27T03:55:00.000-07:00

This story recently appeared in Issue 85 of Shift Miner Magazine. I hope you get something out of it. Please, leave a comment.

Hal loved his family. He carried a photo of them with him, all the time. It was because he loved them that he agreed to his wife Jody's pleas to move them all to Mackay. Emerald had been a great place to live, as far as Hal was concerned. He'd made some great mates there. But Jody's friends and family were in Mackay, and she really wanted the kids to go to school there.

"Besides," said Jody, "with twelve hour shifts you're not really at home when you're working. You could just drive out from Mackay, work your tour, and then come home after your last shift."

It made a lot of sense. He really only did sleep and eat at home during his tour. Lots of others did the drive-in drive-out thing. Anyway, he liked the coast. So, they moved.

Hal found his tours to be more lonely then he'd thought he would. It was that hour or so when he got to the apartment and wound down before falling asleep. He missed the quick catch-ups with Jody, and looking in on the kids in their beds. He still fell asleep soon enough, and when Hal fell asleep, he was dead to the world. He missed them all when he woke up, too. It was like a dull ache; a longing to be somewhere else. It didn't really make much sense. When they were all in the same house he'd only ever got up and dressed in the dark anyway. Still, he'd known that they were there, at home.

On day-shifts, the drive out to the mine in the pre-dawn darkness always helped Hal to clear his head. It was his favourite time of the day. Sometimes he'd think about the work ahead, preparing himself for the day. Sometimes he'd think about his family. Sometimes, fishing.

The end of each tour ended with two or three night shifts, depending on where he was in the roster. He had a kind of feeling of expectation, driving out to the mine in the evenings for his night shifts. It was almost time for his days off; almost time to go back home.

It wasn't the night shifts themselves that Hal liked. In fact, Hal hated working nights. What he liked was knowing that he would soon be going home to his family. What he didn't like was the effort it took to stay awake. He loathed that time from about three to four in the morning, when his body craved a warm bed; but instead he was two hundred and fifty metres underground, putting up roof-bolts or driving a shuttle-car.

For Hal, the next hardest part of night shift was the drive home. The drives back to Emerald wasn't too bad. While some blokes felt better the more night shifts they did in a row, it only seemed to get worse for Hal. By the last shift of his tour, he seemed to be runing on adrenaline and willpower.

It was willpower that made Hal drive straight home to Mackay after his last shift. He didn't want to have another daytime sleep by himself in his Emerald apartment. He just wanted to get home. The mine was half an hour in the right direction anyway. As the great philosopher Meatloaf once said, "Like a bat out of hell, I'll be gone when the morning comes."

Hal worked out ways to stay awake and stay on the road on that long, tired trip home. He'd turn the radio on or played a CD, loud. He'd turn the air-conditioner onto freezing, or sometimes open a window. He would stop at the servo outside Moranbah, scratching his scalp and rubbing his face. He'd get an iced coffee from the fridge packed full of them, and then hit the road again. Next stop: Nebo. If he found himself drifting off, he'd pull over for a minute and run around the car. Hal had it worked out.

After six months, the car pretty much drove itself home. Hal cut out the Nebo stop, and sometimes Moranbah too. He got better at pushing himself through those sleepy moments. He'd focus. He'd talk to himself. He'd think about Jody and the kids. He'd keep going, going, going. Home.

An elderly couple towing their caravan with an old Landcruiser were the first on the scene where Hal's ute had been split in half by a huge gum tree about twenty metres from the road. The ambulance officers weren't able to revive him. There were no skid marks, and tests showed his brakes were working fine.

After six years, his family still miss him very much.

Early Starts

2010-04-13T16:45:00.001-07:00

Following is a piece of flash fiction called Early Starts, recently published in Issue 84 of Shift Miner Magazine. The idea is based on two eerily similar stories I've heard from fellow mine workers. Anyone who has to get to work for early starts in the morning should be able to relate to this.

Harry woke to the sound of a bump and a scream, and sat straight up in bed. In a moment he was staggering down the hall to his daughter's room. He wondered how his wife Judy had slept through it; but then, it had been a rough night for both of them. He found their daughter lying on the ground beside her bed, crying, still half asleep. He picked her up, rubbed her back and made hushing sounds. After a minute it started to work, and before too long he had her tucked back into bed.

Harry wandered back down the hall and went to the toilet. He was about to go back to bed when he decided that it wasn't worth it. He'd have to be up again soon to go to work anyway. The only thing worse than waking up this early was just getting back to sleep and doing it all over again. If there was a single thing that Harry hated about working in the mining industry, it was the early starts. He liked small towns; he preferred them to cities, and enjoyed the fact that despite this he got paid a remote area living allowance. He liked the work, and he liked the people. At least, he didn't dislike the people any more than those in other industries. But Harry was not a morning person. He would set his alarm for the latest possible time he could, without being late for the shift bus. He had his lunch packed the night before; Judy did that for him, mostly. He would lay his clothes, wallet, keys and phone in the bathroom the night before. Harry did his mornings sleepwalking in remote control.

He would usually just throw his clothes on in the dark and leave, but with a bit of extra time today, he treated himself to a shower. The hot water felt good on his neck and back, and he felt his mind clearing as he prepared to face the day. He still ranted in his mind about the ridiculously early start time. He did this almost every day, slowly building up enough anger to get himself moving. Why does the shift have to start at six? he asked himself. Why not eight? Once he got over that, he thought about what he might do with the rest of this extra time. He ruled TV out as a waste. I hardly ever read he thought, as he towelled himself down. I'll start one of those novels I bought, getting dusty on the shelf.

With years of practice he slipped into his clothes, and loaded up his pockets. He turned off the bathroom light and began to sneak down the hall.

Judy appeared in the doorway of their bedroom, scaring him silly. He said one of those words he'd promised to stop saying now that he was a father.

"What on earth are you doing?" said Judy. She said the words slowly, with little pauses between them. It was like she was talking to a child, and he hated it.

Harry kept up the slow talking thing and said, "I'm going to work."

"Harry," said Judy, "It's one o'clock in the morning."

He paused. "Oh," he said. "Well, I thought I might sit down and read one of my novels first."

Legend in His Own Lunchbox

2010-03-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

After a break, I have started writing for Shift Miner Magazine again. My latest contribution appears on page 19 of Issue 83, and is called Legend in His Own Lunchbox.

I wrote this story in response to a challenge from Tristan, who wrote:

Bernard, this question has been asked of me in the past and my answer has never been an easy decision. Try using it as a challenge for a story:

"Do you want to be a big part of something small, or a small part of something big?"

I hope that my story is up to the challenge. This story is also less technical in nature than some of the previous ones; I hope that those of you not in the mining industry can enjoy it.

Your comments are appreciated. Unless you're posting spam links; in which case please go away.

Update: The full text of this story is posted here.

High School 50 Years Ago

2010-03-11T17:44:00.000-08:00

I've just tried out a blog called The One-Minute Writer. They give you a prompt, and you have just one minute to write about it. Believe me, it's not long. It was kind of fun though; I may try it again some time.

The prompt (from here), is:

Do you think high school is easier or harder today, than it was 50 years ago? Why?

My Response: High School 50 Years Ago
There's no doubt that high school was a lot harder fifty years ago. Just ask my grandfather. He had to walk five miles to school, sometimes in the snow. He was caned for frowning or not doing his homework. At the end of a gruelling day, he had to walk seven miles home again, in the blistering heat.

Sue and I

2010-03-09T01:06:00.000-08:00

Her name was Sue. I got this from her name badge. She was about forty, and I thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Her fingers showed no sign of a wedding ring, though of course I hadn't had the courage to ask about that.

I'd first seen Sue at the Hertz desk when I arrived in town after a business trip on a late flight from Brisbane. Now I found myself approaching the desk to rent a car for no other purpose than to see her, and to talk to her again, and hopefully to find the courage to ask her out.

I'd picked a time late in the day. The airport was almost empty, and there were no other customers. I approached the desk quietly; too quietly. Sue was concentrating on cutting out some labels. I coughed politely to get her attention, and gave her such a fright she swore and cut her finger with the scissors. She seemed more embarrassed than hurt, though it did draw blood.

"Sorry," she squeaked as she hurried out the back, "I'll be right back." She returned in a few minutes, with a bandaid on her finger. "I'm so sorry," she said. Her face was still just a little flushed, though her silvering blonde hair still sat perfectly on her shoulders. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful, but that wouldn't have been proper. Instead I said, "Do you have any cars free at the moment?"

"You don't have a reservation?" Her tone was professional.

I shook my head. "Not at all," I said, and shrugged, trying to pull off nonchalant. "It's just a spur-of-the-moment thing."

Sue started to go red again. "I'm sorry, but we do only bring a limited number of cars here into the airport office, over and above those required to meet reservations. It's late in the day, and they've all been taken. I could call the downtown office, if you like." She reached for the phone with her hand that didn't have a bandaid, or a wedding ring, on it.

"No, don't do that. It doesn't matter." I turned to go, took a few steps then turned around again. She was still looking at me. "Thank you anyway," I said, "Thank you." Again I turned away, took a few steps and turned to face her. She hadn't stopped watching me, but she looked more amused than anything now. I shuffled back to the desk. "And sorry about that," I said. It was my turn to blush now, as I pointed to her injured finger. She had such elegant fingers.

"It wasn't your fault," she said. Her voice was softer now, less businesslike and efficient. It had huskiness to it.

I wanted to lean over the counter and kiss her softly on the lips, but that wouldn't be right at all. I cleared the thought from my mind, and turned again.

This time Sue's voice made me turn back to her. "Not that it's my business," she said, her voice still gentle, but firm, "but this must be the third time you've come out to get a car on a whim."

I said nothing, but I was conscious of the heat in my face. It must have been glowing.

"Is there anything else you'd like, that I could help you with?"

I didn't want to kiss her any more; I wanted to turn and run. I forced myself to stay, look into her eyes and nod.

Sue looked at her watch. "I close up here in twenty minutes. Would you like to hang around till then, and we can go get a late dinner?"

The relief made me feel a little dizzy. I hung onto the counter for balance, and nodded again. I coughed, to clear my throat. "Yes Sue," I said. "I'd like that. I'd like that very much."

Edit: typos as per Matt's comments.

The Motivator

2010-03-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

This story was originally published in the 5 minute fiction column of Issue 76 of Shift Miner Magazine. I previously blogged about this story here.

This is a deviation from my usual stories and has a sadder theme. I got some varied feedback on this story. This included a someone telling me that they felt that I was judging people who chose to do fly-in-fly-out type of work. He seemed to take it personally; perhaps I hit a nerve.

What do you think?

The Motivator
Trent left the job he loved to chase the pay packets that the coal mines were offering. He found a job as a boilermaker for a contracting company; though, he didn't like the work at all. He loathed the early morning starts, getting up in the dark. Welding, cutting and gouging steel in the Central Queensland heat sapped his strength and his will. In a way, the work was always changing: a dragline bucket, a stacker-reclaimer, a construction job. Really though, the work never changed.

From the very start, Trent's only reason for working in the mines was to give his family the financial security and opportunities they deserved. He kept himself going through the weeks, months and years because this motivation was so close to his heart, literally. In his left shirt pocket, Trent kept his first payslip, with a photo of his wife Alison, and their two little girls, Caitlin and Emily, glued to the back. He called it his Motivator. He had plasticised his Motivator with a laminator to protect it from the dirt, sweat and coal dust. Over time it had become covered in creases and folds, and the plastic was peeling apart at the corners. During crib times, or the lonely nights in the camp, Trent would take out his motivator to remind himself of the reasons he was sweating in the heat and the dust, and to muster the strength to get up and get back to work.

He'd done all this for them; they knew that. They must know that. Their new life had its costs, of course. Trent hadn't been there when Caitlin lost her first tooth. He was on site when Emily fell down the stairs and cut her head open. He'd offered to come home on the next plane, but no, she said, we managed okay. She didn't add, “without you”, but he'd felt it.

They'd talked about it, after he'd finished that tour: if he should leave the mines and come back. It wouldn't work, she said, with the mortgage on the home, and the car repayments, and the private school fees. He said fine, and that he was only doing it for them anyway; he was willing to pay the price.

They seemed to manage okay, on the whole; but Trent was rarely around for the little things. He could book leave and twist his boss's arm to make time for the big occasions, but the little things slipped by; one at a time, over the years.

One day he arrived home for his days off, exhausted, to an empty house. “We've grown apart,” she said when he found her, eventually, at her mother's place. “You're not the same person any more, and neither am I.”

“I did all this for you,” said Trent.

“I know, I know; but it's not going to work. Don't worry about us, we'll manage okay.”

There were a lot of things Trent wanted to say then, but he didn't. He couldn't find the words, so he stood there like an idiot, with his mouth open. He thought of things he could have said, later.

Trent keeps working in the mines on the roster he still hates. He still does it for the girls, the two little ones mostly. He hopes that one day soon they won't despise him like they do now; that they'll grow out of it. He hopes that Alison will come back to him. A stupid hope, he knows, but it's still his hope. He can forget the pain and the past with the hard work and the hot sun and the scorching steel. He can forget until crib time, when he pulls out his motivator, and clenches his jaw to hold back the tears.

How embarrassing!

2010-02-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

At the end of December, I shared my excitement about my short story People Need to Know moving from the Slush Pile to In Process at Every Day Fiction.

Well, today I got my long awaited reply. They like the piece, and want me to make some minor rewrites. Their comments were very positive, and I think the changes they suggested are spot-on. I fell over myself sending them an e-mail that they could expect my rewrite in a day or two.

For reasons that must have seemed good at the time, I edited the original version of this story in my computer's temporary directory before sending it off. I remember now that I thought I'd just make a change here and there; but I actually re-wrote, re-shuffled and revised the entire story. Time away from a piece really helps you look objectively at it during the editing process.

Every Day Fiction has an online submission system, so I just copied and pasted the text in there, and that was it. Except of course that I'm very dillegent in cleaning out my temporary directories.

I don't have a copy of what I sent them.

What to do? Well, I ate humble pie and sent this little "PS" e-mail to them:

PS:
Is it possible for you to e-mail me a copy of the submission that I made? It appears that I stored the file in a temporary directory, and it has been deleted. I'm sorry to ask this; however, I know that I made a lot of changes since the last version of this story I still have. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to work again from that version.

Again, I'm really sorry about his mistake - I've broken one of the golden rules of submitting works for publication.

I'm hoping to get an e-mail with my story soon, and a note that says, "No worries, mate, these things happen."

Has anything like this every happened to you? Do you think I did the (w)rite thing?

None and Buckley's

2010-01-31T19:21:00.000-08:00

This story was published today in the 5 minute fiction column of Issue 79 of Shift Miner Magazine. This was actually the first story I wrote for Shift Miner to go with my pitch to the editor. The original story was too long. Cutting it down was a lot of work, and during the process I wrote and submitted Lifting Point instead; and then another, and another.

This story is based on legends I've heard (but not experienced first-hand) of the "old days", and the battles that once raged between unions and mining companies. As usually, it's fiction, and it's primary purpose is entertainment. If you don't get a chuckle, then it hasn't worked. It does make a statement however; and I hope it will be received as "fair enough" from those on both sides of the divide.

None and Buckley's

“The strike is about the hot water system in the bath house,” said Darren. “It stopped working just as the night shift were completing their showers this morning.”

"Just as they were finishing?" said Prop, smiling. He leaned back in his chair in the corner of Darren's office and put his hands behind his head.

Darren tried not to show his irritation: this was not a joke. "Yes," he said. "As they were finishing their showers, the water went cold. The oncoming crew has refused to go to work. They will be voting shortly on whether to extend industrial action for a twenty-four hour period or to return to work."

Prop nodded. "And you want to stop them taking the twenty-four?"

Darren threw his clipboard down onto the table. "Yes, of course I do!"

Darren had been Mine Manager of Montrose Colliery for only two weeks. Today was his first confrontation with the union on site, and he was determined to win this battle. Prop would be an invaluable asset in achieving this. While Darren was an underground cleanskin, Prop knew the operation inside out. He'd worked his way up through the ranks from an operator to a deputy and then an undermanager before being promoted to Deputy Mine Manager two years ago.

Prop smiled again. "We can have a chat with the reps; but you've got two chances of stopping this strike today."

"And those are?"

"None and Buckley's"

Darren wasn't amused. "Do you think this is a joke? This throws the entire coal chain into havoc. And for what? A health and safety matter? No, for cold showers!"

Prop leaned forward and placed his hands on the desk. "Look," he said. "I know the boys have got away with blue murder in the past; but it's been a game with rules broken by both sides for years. If you really want to fix that, then I'm with you all the way."

Darren smiled. "Good," he said. "Then how do we get them to back down?"

Prop shook his head. "Today is a lost cause," he said. "Take it on the chin. Give it a week or two to calm down, and then set up a meeting with you, me and the union reps down at the Golf Club. We'll play the back nine, then go to the bar and really get to understand each other."

Darren brought his fist down onto the table. It made his clipboard jump, but not Prop. Darren's voice was a rough whisper. "Whose side are you on, anyway?"

Prop shook his head as he stood up. "Come out with me to the car park."

"Are you threatening me?"

Prop laughed. "If I wanted a dust-up, I'd deck you right here," he said. He stopped smiling. "You're not going to stop this strike today. Come and I'll show you why."

Darren took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing himself to calm down. He saw a Willy Wagtail through his window sitting in the tree beside his office. He envied that bird for a moment: no worries except wagging his tail and catching the next insect. He turned to Prop and nodded, then walked out the door.

Out in the car park, the mine workers were gathered in the far corner, watching them suspiciously.

"Have a look," said Prop, "and tell me what's different today."

Darren looked around. "Apart from 'D' Crew standing around, instead of cutting coal?" he said. His voice was bitter. Prop didn't reply as Darren kept looking, trying to work out what was different. When he saw it, he wondered how he'd missed it. He turned to face Prop. "Why have they all taken their boats to work?" At least half the vehicles in the car park had a boat on a trailer behind them.

Prop smiled. "They're heading for the coast" he said. "They'll have agreed to take a long weekend a long time before they turned up this morning. You won't stop 'em."

Darren felt his jaw go slack. "This sort of thing can't go on." He thought things over, as they stood quietly in the morning sun. Then he laughed. "We'll leave this go for today, Prop," he said, "but I want you to set up a day at the Golf Club, like you talked about. We need to sort something out that works for everyone."

leftbrainwrite: Helping Haiti -- Cash for Your Comments

2010-01-20T18:24:00.000-08:00

leftbrainwrite: Helping Haiti -- Cash for Your Comments

You Miners Get Paid Too Much

2010-01-11T17:23:00.000-08:00

This story was first published in the 5 minute fiction column in Issue 74 of Shift Miner Magazine. I blogged about this story initially here.

WARNING: This piece contains dangerous levels of sarcasm and opinions that may offend some readers. (IM) Recommended for immature audiences only.

You Miners Get Paid Too Much
“I've got to say,” said Mike, “I don't think it's fair, what you miners get paid.”

Great, thought Paul, another one of them. He'd only just met Mike, who was married to one of his wife's new friends. Paul took a sip of his beer. “Don't worry about us mate,” he said. “We're all paid well above award rates.”

Mike turned away from the barbecue, and looked back at Paul. His forehead creased up as he frowned. “That's not what I meant,” he said. “I think you get paid too much.” He picked up his tongs and started to turn over the sausages on the grill, showing black, charred undersides.

“I check my payslip every month,” said Paul, keeping a straight face, “and I only ever get paid as much as what's in my contract. I've never been over-paid.”

The joke was lost on Mike, but that made it funnier, really. “I don't mean, like, they pay you more than your contract. I mean, what's in your contract isn't fair. You blokes get paid a ridiculous amount.”

“If my pay packet isn't unfair to me, then who is it unfair to?”

Mike focussed his attention on flipping steaks for a minute. He was frowning again. “It's unfair to the rest of us,” he said, “not working in the mines; getting a normal wage.”

“Where do you work now?” said Paul.

“I'm a boilermaker at Harvey's Engineering,” said Mike. He looked uncertain about this change in tack, but went along with it. “It's a steel fabrication workshop. We do mostly custom jobs.”

“You spend a lot of time driving to and from work; are your hours very long?”

Mike spoke slowly as he replied. “It's a bit under ten minutes from here. I do seven to three, Monday to Friday. I do overtime now and then.”

“Do they treat you fairly: pay your wages, give you reasonable time off, treat you like a person?”

Mike got defensive. “My boss is great. He pays better than most do around here. I've never had a problem working for 'im. Never.”

“Well Mike,” said Paul, using his hands as he spoke, “it sounds to me like you've got it made. Plenty of time to spend with your family. A job you like, where they treat you fair. They pay you enough for you to live in a great house in a great suburb.” He paused, then added softly, “So how is it that my pay packet is making you worse off?”

Mike was turning meat so fast now it was almost a blur. He kept his eyes on the barbecue, not looking at Paul. As soon as the sausages and steaks were all turned, he would mix up the onions on the plate for a bit, and then go back to flipping sausages. The flames of the barbecue flared with the fat that dripped down from the meat dropping back onto the grill. “Fair enough,” said Mike. “I like my life. I'm not complaining about my set-up here. I just think what you blokes working in the mines get paid is...”

“Unfair,” Paul finished for him. He rolled his eyes; he was tired of this conversation now. “Okay. Do you want to get paid a hundred, maybe even a hundred and twenty thousand a year?”

“Of course I do!”

“Well, if you want the pay, you take the job. You've got no mining experience, so you're better of trying to get a start with a contracting company – but you can apply anywhere you want. I know there's a project near Nebo where the contractor is screaming out for blokes. No need to uproot the wife and kids: you can keep the house here in Brissy. You'll fly into Mackay for the start of your tour, and get a bus out to site. With this mob you'll be doing ten days on - twelve hour shifts. You then fly out to Brisbane for your five days off with the family, and then it all starts again. Fair deal?”

“Are you nuts?” Mike turned away from the barby to face Paul again. “You want me to do boilermaking work for twelve hours in a single day, for ten days straight, sleeping in some donger camp in the desert, away from my wife and kids? You'd have to pay me a tad more than a hundred and twenty thousand bucks a year to do that.”

“So it really isn't fair what we miners get paid, is it?” said Paul. “That meat looks done, mate. Let's see if the girls are ready to eat.”

Lifting Point

2010-01-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

I've decided to publish the stories that I've written for Shift Miner Magazine here in the Surge Bin. Till now, you've had to read the stories in the "latest issue" available at the SM website.
This story, Lifting Point, was my first flash fiction piece published in the 5 minute fiction column, and appeared in Issue 73 of Shift Miner Magazine. I blogged about this story initially here.

Lifting Point
“What I want to do,” said Max, “is put a lifting point onto that beam.” He pointed up to the beam and then down to the cyclone product screen below. “Then we can lift the motor straight up and down to get it off and on the screen.”

Neil looked at the beam, the screen and then back at Max. As the mechanical engineer for the washplant he often had operators, boilermakers or fitters like Max come to him with improvement ideas. “How do you lift the motor now?”

“We put a fibre sling over that beam, and put a shackle through it for the chainblock,” he said. “But you need to go to the floor above and push the sling down through the grating, with some pipe through the sling 'cause of the sharp edges in the grating. And you need to barricade around the area with hazard tape. It's a real pain.”

“Sure,” said Neil. Sometimes an improvement just wasn't worth the effort, and this was one of those times. He didn't like to break the news, though. He let the blokes work it out for themselves. “I'll help you through the process. If you draw a sketch of what you want, including dimensions, then I'll get it properly drawn up.”

“And then you'll get it made?”

“Not quite,” said Neil. “I'll get the design certified by an RPEQ – that's a Registered Proffessional Engineer of Queensland. You'll need to help me find the weight of the motor and the chainblock for that.”

“And then you'll get it made?”

“Yeah. Right after I get the drawing and change management forms signed off by the maintenance superintendent and the mechanical engineering manager, and added to the drawing register. I'll get a quote for fabrication and then raise a purchase requisition, and our lifting point will get ordered.”

“Wow,” said Max, “It's getting bigger than Ben-Hur; but, I suppose if we're going to do it, we'll do it properly. So, I'll just weld it up once it's delivered?”

“Well, the job'll need to be planned and scheduled through the work management system, based on priority, but yes, that's about it.” Neil looked around, thinking about the job. “Of course, you'll need to do the work from a ladder with a harness for fall restraint. Unless you want to get a scaffold built?”

Max's eyes went wide. He shook his head, and said, “N-No, the ladder's fine.”

Neil continued, “You'll need a Working at Heights Permit for that. Because you'll be welding, you'll have to get a Hot Work Permit, and of course set up some welding screens. You can get some fire blanket material from the store to lay onto the screen panels: we'll need to make sure your welding sparks don't melt those. First up though, you'll need to barricade the area with hazard tape, but that's just standard procedure. With all that in place, you can do your JHA and Take 5 and get into it. I'll get you the painting specification you need to comply with in plenty of time, of course. And once it's all done, I'll get the as-built drawings issued and approved.” Neil paused, then added, “You are signed off for structural welding, aren't you?”

Max looked back up at the beam. “You know,” he said, “we don't change the motor that often, and when we do, we can just pop a sling over that beam up there.”

To the Top

2010-01-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

This is a six-sentence response to 3WW CLXXI. The words are epic, drain and nibble. I've cross-posted this to the 6S social site for comments over there.

I drink my beer and smile big as Steve, my boss, tells one of his epic tales of boating, fishing, drinking and womanising. I chuckle when required; scanning for waitresses bringing more beer or snacks. I drain my glass just in time for it to be replaced and nibble on what I've deduced is a battered, deep fried prawn. The price I pay for free alcohol and food is outrageous. Still, Steve's going all the way to the top, he says, and he's taking me with him. I dummy back to join the group behind me just in time to be served a dim-sim and laugh at one of the Accounts Manager's jokes.

Edit: "by glass" => "my glass".

The Silent Treatment

2010-01-05T21:57:00.000-08:00

"How you doing?" said Ian, as he sat down beside Mandy on the bench. It was hot out in the sun. The gum tree overhead gave a small patch of shade, but it didn't cover the bench.

Mandy didn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the kookaburra sitting in the other gum tree, across the lawn. It was watching her too. "Fine," she said.

Ian looked for a smile, or anything, in her face. No smile, but she seemed to have a tic in her left cheek. "I'm really sorry," he said, "how things turned out."

"You're sorry?"

Ian flinched. He nodded. "Yes, I am."

She said nothing now, though she seemed to be crying.

"I didn't mean to hurt you. I only ever wanted what was best for you." The lines were rehearsed, but he found it hard to go on. The words wouldn't come. It was too hot. His legs were sweating in his suit pants and beginning to itch.

Mandy still said nothing. She was definitely crying. Great. The silent treatment.

Ian tried one last time. "I probably should have told you sooner, how I felt."

Now she turned to look at him. Her eyes were red and the tears had eroded little streaks down through her makeup. "Probably?" She had that inquisition tone again; using his words back at him as questions. It felt so hateful.

"Okay," said Ian. "Definitely. I definitely should have told you. I just never thought about it properly before today in those words, you know? And then he said, 'until death do you part'. I just freaked out. I realised I'm not ready for that. It wouldn't have been fair to you to say, 'I do.'" He paused, and then added, "I'll help cover the costs, of course, for the catering, and the wedding dress."

"Just go away." She turned to looked at the kookaburra again.

A breeze came through the church yard and blew her veil up into Ian's face. He stood up, stretching his legs and jiggling his pants where they itched. "Fair enough," he said. He left the church grounds by jumping the back fence. It didn't seem like a good time to mingle with the family.

Guest Blogger

2010-01-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

Greg Bray from Gladstone has taken the title as inaugural guest blogger at How to Get Published. His post, Writing a Humorous Column, is the first of a series that Greg has agreed to write. Thanks, Greg! You can check out Greg's column with the Gladstone Observer and his other writings and bloggings at his blog.

Why not consider writing a guest blog for How to Get Published? It could be about almost any facet of the writer's life, craft and the world of publication. Send me an e-mail with what you've got in mind; I'll be glad to hear from you.

In Process

2009-12-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

Thirty-eight days ago, I submitted a short story called People Need to Know to Everyday Fiction (EDF). I don't count the days - the submission tracking system tells me. Up until yesterday, that same system told me that the status of my story submission was "Slush". You don't need to know a lot about the publishing world to understand that slush is not a good place to be. In publishing houses, the "slush pile" is the nickname for the great big pile of unsolicited manuscripts that are yet to be sorted (read: thrown away). The name comes from the quality of the vast majority of manuscipts in the slush pile. They're not typically very good. Anyway, the name has stuck, and the editorial team at EDF have a slush pile too, albeit electronic.

Like many publishers, EDF have "slush readers". Their job is to read through the slush pile, reject all the very bad stories immediately, and pass the not-so-very-bad stories on to the editors for them to read. When a submission passes the first-pass filter of the slush reader and moves to an editor, the submission status moves from "Slush" to "In Process".

This is what happened to me yesterday. People Need to Know got past the gatekeeper, and an editor is going to read it. The reason I'm posting about this? Well, I'm really quite happy about this little piece of progress. Too happy, for what it is, I think. That said, some slush reader didn't think it was bad enough to reject outright. That's something, isn't it?

If you want to know more about submitting stories to EDF, have a read of an article I wrote about that called Get Published at Everyday Fiction.

If you want to poke fun, use the comments. Happy New Year!

Six Word Memoirs

2009-12-29T19:46:00.001-08:00

I just discovered Six Word Memoirs. Six words is what I call concise. I couldn't resist trying to use only five words, and so I had a go here. Why only five words? I don't like to pad out my writing just to get to the word limit.

On Considering my Marriage to June

2009-12-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've written a slightly different six-sentence piece here. My apologies to those of you who get little satisfaction from the sixes. I'll try to post something more substantial here soon.

Home

2009-12-25T20:20:00.000-08:00

They spent hours, days, looking at houses. Each one had at least one thing they didn't like, but usually more.

“If we're going to commit to so much debt,” she said, “it's got to be just what we want. Our first home has got to be perfect.”

He agreed, and they kept looking. Days turned to weeks. They got tired and stressed, and started bickering and second-guessing each other.

“I wish we could be like we were before,” he said, when she asked him what his problem was. She felt the same way, she said.

They went home to their rented apartment. She smiled as he led her through the doorway by the hand.

“Welcome home,” he said.

After the Duel

2009-12-22T13:36:00.001-08:00

Another one of my micro-fiction (twenty-five word) stories, has been put up at Espresso Stories. It's called After the Duel.

Click here for links to the rest of my Espresso Stories. You'll notice I'm not doing well in the popularity stakes. I'm going through my nobody-loves-me tortured-artist phase.

Feeling Dirty

2009-12-15T19:54:00.000-08:00

My short story Feeling Dirty has been published in the 5 Minute Fiction column of Issue 77 of Shift Miner. The latest issue is always available for download from the website. There's a new edition every two weeks.

Plot Spoiler Warning! Read Feeling Dirty before continuing...

About Feeling Dirty
Shane from Emerald gave me a challenge a few weeks ago:

Jethro wants to be a coal miner, but he suffers from automysophobia (an abnormal fear of being dirty). He's been trying to get a job in the mines for years, and now he has got a chance as an operator/maintainer in a CHPP.

I decided to take him up on the challenge. Rather than create a reply for this blog, I decided to write my response as a story for my 5 Minute Fiction column at Shift Miner. After all, I had to write the column anyway. This may seem a little lazy to you. I prefer to call it "efficient".

The story I wrote is obviously based on the premise within the challenge. I thought a job interview would be a fun setting. The twist was also important. I couldn't leave a character thinking that you don't get dirty in a washplant! I hope you enjoyed the story.

Shift Miner Online Delay

2009-12-15T15:55:00.000-08:00

Sorry to those that are hanging out for the latest Shift Miner on their website. They appear to be experiencing some technical difficulties. The print version is out, and available from the usual outlets. My story in this issue is called Feeling Dirty. I'll post the links, and some background on the story, when the new pdf version is available online.

Last night I sent in my story for the last edition of the year, which should come out on Monday 28 December 2009. My story is called Christmas Party. I promise it's not boring.

Brave Little Girl

2009-12-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

This story is a response to Sunday Scribblings writing prompt number 193: brave. It's just a little idea; I hope you like it.

Julie hated to be called brave.

"There's a brave little girl," her Mother always said before the needles and the operations. A brave little girl was what it meant to feel a lot of pain and not be able to do anything about it.

"She's so brave," the other adults whispered to her parents, thinking she couldn't hear. It's my bones that don't work properly, she thought, not my ears. She pretended to ignore them, and wheeled her chair to her bedroom to cry. To be brave meant to be helpless and pathetic. Brave girls were pitied, and whispered about.

"I just want to say from all Australians, you are so brave," said the hyped-up burly sports reporter, right after Julie was awarded her Paralympic gold medal. The brave little Aussie girl in the wheelchair, who captured the heart of a nation, buried her fist in the reporter's face, knocking him cold to the ground.

"She is such a bitch," said the office-workers as they gathered in their kitchenettes for their morning coffee breaks.

The Motivator & Shift Miner Feedback

2009-12-03T16:26:00.001-08:00

Edition 76 of Shift Miner Magazine is out. You can always download the latest issue as a pdf from their website. My story for this edition of the 5 Minute Fiction column is called The Motivator, and is on page 19. While I've tried to keep the first few stories up-beat and humorous, this one's a bit on the sad side.

My inspiration for this piece comes from the many stories I've heard and the few instances I've seen of marriages pulled apart by the time and distance of working a FIFO shift roster in the mines.

I did once work with a man at Southern Colliery who had a laminated copy of his payslip in his pocket. He was only to happy to explain that it was to remind him why he was there. That was some place to work: we all needed a motivator from time to time.

While you're reading the Shift Miner, take a look at "Stuff to the Editor" on page 16. Shane Garven wrote:

G'day guys,
Thanks for the mag. It's always a good read and full of relevant information, and some good laughs. Really like the addition of the 5 minute fiction stories. Old Bernard might ahve a new career on his hands. Keep up the good work.

Thanks heaps to Shane for expressing his support. That's the kind of feedback that makes it worthwile. While it is a dream to be able to support myself from writing, I'm not about to quit my day-job!

Crossing the Tarmac

2009-11-30T17:02:00.000-08:00

This a response to a writing challenge. Mez told me to write a story about "the person you'd least expect to see in an airport terminal". I hope this very short story meets with her (and your) approval. Please rate this story below, and leave comments.

David walked in line with the other passengers from the plane towards the terminal. He adjusted his tie with his free right hand: he always felt like he was on show, walking on the tarmac. He remembered how, as a boy, his parents would take him and his brother Adrian to the observation deck to look at the planes. Adrian had been obsessed with planes, but David had been intrigued by the people walking between the planes and the terminal. Now he looked up to the observation deck and wondered if some other young boy was up there, dreaming about the destinations and motivations of the passengers below, as he once did.

David didn't know who was going to pick him up from the airport. Things were hectic at the family home, with the whole family converging on the town for his grandfather's funeral. In any case, he'd been assured that someone would be sent to fetch him. That could be awkward. There was a handful of people in David's extended family that he would loathe getting into a car with, and about the same number that felt the same way about David. Eventually, David decided that his sister May would get the job. Though they only talked on the phone a few times a year – life was just so busy – they didn't hate each other. How many kids did May have now?, he wondered. Four? Yes four, definitely; or five. David didn't mind his sister, and he could get on with May's husband (what was his name?), but he really couldn't stand his nephews and nieces. He hoped she didn't bring any to the airport. The small ones were screaming poo factories. The big ones had been hitting puberty pretty hard last time David had had the misfortune of crossing paths with them. That was about two years ago; maybe three.

As the glass door to the terminal opened, covering David with a gust of cold air-conditioning, he decided that starting now, he'd keep in better contact with his family gain. He knew it was guilt that drove him to make this secret commitment, but he didn't care. It was a promise he'd made, and broken, plenty of times before. It made him feel better, for a while.

Inside the terminal, David looked around for his sister. He couldn't see her. Instead, a tall, blonde bombshell that looked no more than sixteen or seventeen years old bounded up to him, gave him a big hug, and kissed him on the cheek. "Hello Uncle David," she said. "I'm here to pick you up. Did you check any baggage, or do you just have the carry-on?"

Ugly Duckling

2009-11-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

This is the third of three (exactly) fifty-word stories that I wrote for the Brian Dibble Shortest Story Competition. I didn't win.

Sarah was a pimply, pudgy teenager. Her mother tenderly took her hand, and told her the story of "The Ugly Duckling".

"One day," she said, "you'll become a beautiful swan."

"You don't just think I'm ugly," said Sarah, between sobs. "You think I'm a whole different species!"

Fifty

2009-11-22T20:23:00.000-08:00

This is the second of three (exactly) fifty-word stories that I wrote for the Brian Dibble Shortest Story Competition. I didn't win.

I broke down in tears when I tried to write a story in only fifty words. I threw my pen across the room and swore.

"That's not a story," I said to the scribbling on my notebook. "That's a paragraph!"

I went back to working on my novel.

Inconsiderate

2009-11-20T20:36:00.000-08:00

A piercing shriek reverberates throughout the train carriage. It stings my ears, and I cover them with my hands. The muscles in my neck clench up and spasms shoot down past my shoulders. I stop breathing momentarily. The hubbub of conversation and laughter within the carriage stops cold, and an elderly man across the aisle clutches desperately at his hearing aid.

The apocalyptic cry came from a young boy, a toddler really, sitting two rows in front of me. I seethe as I fix my eyes on him. He's sitting next to a woman who I assume is his mother. She looks ghastly, though she would not yet be thirty years old. The woman doesn't react to the child, but continues to stare out of the window.

How inconsiderate! She should do something about that child.

The child hits the woman's arm and shouts at her, "Mummy!"

The woman turns slowly from the window, focuses on the boy, gives him a weak smile. "Yes, Danny?"

The boy says nothing, but turns around and wriggles backwards into his mothers side. She puts her arm around him, kisses the top of his head, and then turns back to the window.

The other passengers in the train return to their own books, newspapers and conversations. Minutes pass; we stop at Indooroopily Station, and then continue towards Ipswich.

As we are leaving Oxley Station, the boy screams again. My nerves are still frayed from the first outburst. The noise invades my flesh like some demonic force. I feel a stabbing pain in behind my eyes, and my neck clenches up again. A tic starts in my right cheek. I glare at the mother with freshly kindled wrath, yet she continues to stare into the window.

It is just unacceptable to allow that sort of behaviour. How inconsiderate!

I continue to stare, hoping she will glance my way, so that my scowling scrutiny might communicate my intense disapproval. I see that she truly is a loathsome creature. Her hair is a mess. Her eyes are bloodshot, and there are dark orbs beneath them on her cheeks.

Probably on drugs. Calls herself a mother? Where is the boy's father? Perhaps she doesn't even know who the father is! Some people in this world are just trash; it makes me sick.

I look around the carriage. Some of the other passengers are also trying to stare the woman down. A few of them share a knowing look with me. The mother is unperturbed, however. She sits, vacantly drawn to the world outside her window, her head rocking slightly with the sway of the carriage.

Someone needs to tell that woman to bring her child into line. It's upsetting not just me, but everyone else on the train. She may be inconsiderate of others, but I'm not. I'm going to do something about it, for everyone's sake.

I walk over to the woman and take the seat opposite. I say, "Excuse me", but there is no reaction. I cough, and again say, "Excuse me".

She is completely ignoring me.

I reach out and tap her on the shoulder, and quite loudly now, say, "Excuse me!"

She turns her head from the window and focuses her bleary eyes on mine. "Sorry," she says, "can I help you?"

"Yes, I think you can," I reply, pointing at the child. "Your boy really is very loud, and is causing quite a disturbance to the good people on this carriage. I'd just like to ask you to show some consideration, and keep him a little more under control."

There: I said it.

The woman looks around the carriage, and seems to notice for the first time that every eye and ear in the place is on her.

The automated public address system announces to the hushed carriage, "The next station is Darra."

Tears form in the woman's eyes as she says, "I'm so sorry. Danny's having a lot of trouble coping; we both are, really. My husband – his father – we just had the funeral yesterday. This our station coming up right now. We won't bother you much longer."

Farewell Gift [Part 5 of 5]

2009-11-17T16:44:00.000-08:00

Welcome to "Farewell Gift", a 2,500 short story I wrote earlier this year. I've decided to present it to you here on Surge Bin in five parts. Why not start with part 1, and work your way through? Enjoy!

(...continued)

Marcelle glanced at the clock: three sixteen. It was only two minutes since she had last looked. She went to the kitchen and asked Laura, "You want some tea?"

"Sure thing," she replied, "Why don't you just relax. We know he took the suitcase, we know he got on the plane, and we know the plane has landed. It will all work out. He'll be tied up with customs and the police for a while. You may not get a phone call for hours, even days."

But the phone did ring. Marcelle rushed to answer it, leaving the kettle in the sink.

"Marcelle speaking!"

"Hello Marcelle." The sound of Gary's voice made her heart jolt.

"Gary. You landed safely?"

"Yes, we're all safe in Thailand now. It took me an hour longer than everyone else to get through customs, but never mind. You'd think they'd never seen Prada before."

"You're through customs?" Marcelle's voice tripped over her words. She began to realise that the plan had gone very wrong.

Gary continued, "Look Marcelle, I've decided to change our plans a bit. After the sessions with the university, Cindy and I are going hang out in Thailand for a few months, and really get to know the place, and each other."

"Cindy? Laura's Cindy?" Marcelle only became more confused.

"I suppose that may come as a bit of a surprise. I did try to prepare you by getting Cindy to tell her mother I was in a relationship with a student. I knew Laura wouldn't keep her mouth shut, of course. And then you didn't seem to bat an eyelid. I wondered what was going on, until you gave me my farewell gift."

"Farewell gift?" repeated Marcelle, struggling to keep up with what was happening. Laura was now standing beside her, craning her head, desperately trying to hear Gary's voice on the phone.

"Yes, the farewell gift," said Gary, his voice still relaxed. "Given that you were fully aware that I was in a relationship with a much younger woman, who was also a student, you can imagine my surprise that you wanted to give me an expensive new suitcase. So I looked into it, so to speak, and good thing I did. Beware of jilted women bearing gifts."

He chuckled at his own joke and then paused for a few seconds. "That was a lot of heroin, Marcelle. I've decided to return it to you however, as my own little farewell gift. It will be something to remember me by, until I come back to finalise my divorce. I really can't stay married to a drug dealer, you know. I'm sure the judge will see my point of view."

Gary hung up. Marcelle stood holding the beeping phone, reeling. What happened? She tried to explain to Laura, "Gary found the drugs. I think he's left them here with me. He's with Cindy, Laura. He's having an affair with your daughter Cindy. He's going to divorce me. What am I going to do? What are we going to do?"

Laura's face went pale, but she didn't reply. There was a thumping at the door. Marcelle went and opened it. It was the police – lots of them. They rattled through rehearsed phrases, showed some papers, and demanded her car keys. They went through her car, taking out panels and carpets. Very soon, small white packets began to appear. Marcelle and Laura sat down next to each other on the front steps and began to cry.

(End).

Farewell Gift [Part 4 of 5]

2009-11-16T15:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome to "Farewell Gift", a 2,500 short story I wrote earlier this year. I've decided to present it to you here on Surge Bin in five parts. Why not start with part 1, and work your way through? Enjoy!

(...continued)

On Wednesday, they went to the Queen Street Mall and found a classy Prada suitcase that met their requirements perfectly.

Laura spent the rest of the day removing stitching and carefully packing the drugs into the walls of the case. She painstakingly resewed the linings closed.

When Marcelle came around to her apartment, she was impressed.

"Wow Laura, that's amazing!" she said, running her hands over the case, inside and out. She examined the stitching closely. "You can't tell that it's not just a brand new suitcase. It's perfect."

As they admired the farewell gift, Marcelle imagined the look on Gary's face when he saw the hidden contents, and laughed.

"This will be perfect, Laura. Thank you so much."

Laura smiled wearily. "That's okay, Sweetie. It was harder work than my paid job, though – which I'd better get back to tomorrow. The rest is up to you."

(To be continued...)

Farewell Gift [Part 3 of 5]

2009-11-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

Welcome to "Farewell Gift", a 2,500 short story I wrote earlier this year. I've decided to present it to you here on Surge Bin in five parts. Why not start with part 1, and work your way through? Enjoy!

(...continued)

On Tuesday morning, Marcelle and Laura walked the paths and open spaces of the Mount Coot-tha Botanic Gardens with the wind in their hair and the Autumn sun overhead. They'd both phoned into work sick, saying she didn't expect to be in for the rest of the week. They had a lot of work to do.

"I just want him dead," Marcelle said firmly. "He deserves it. He has no right to throw me aside, after everything I've done for him. Over the last eighteen years I've sacrificed my career so we could make the moves to get him the promotions. I've lived my life through his success. He needs to pay!" She paused, then said, "I'm ranting, aren't I?"

"Well," said Laura, with a smile, "yes."

"How are we going to do it, Laura? How are we going to actually kill him?"

Unfazed by the directness of the question, Laura said, "For a start, you and I are not going to go around with knives and guns, or run him down with a car. We need to be really smart about this."

"Do you want to use a hit man?"

"I considered that," she replied casually, "but I don't think we want to bring someone else into this. Obviously there are lots of ways to go about it, but I think the best for our situation is capital punishment."

"Australia doesn't have capital punishment."

"Thailand does."

Marcelle felt her face flush as she realised, "Gary's going to Thailand next week!"

Laura nodded and smiled, then repeated softly, "Gary's going to Thailand next week."

Marcelle found Laura's cold and calculating manner reassuring. This should be freaking me out, but I'm just so glad to have her on my side. Then she thought aloud, "Why would Gary be given the death sentence? I don't think he's planning to commit any crimes over there."

"Gary? Didn't you realise he's a heroin smuggler?" said Laura, chuckling.

"A what?" Marcelle stopped on the path, astonished at the suggestion.

Laura explained further, "The Thai government executes drug smugglers – especially those that bring in heroin. Getting caught bringing that stuff into the country is a one-way ticket to death row over there."

Marcelle barely paused before she laughed, and then said, "So let's buy one of those tickets for my darling husband."

The two women walked and talked for the rest of the day, probing the plan from all angles for weaknesses. The final plan was simple: Marcelle would give Gary a new suitcase for his overseas trip as a farewell gift. Once the plane was in the air, the Thai authorities would be notified anonymously that there was heroin hidden in the lining of Gary's suitcase. The rest was up to the Thai government.

"I had a chat last night with an old girlfriend who made some different choices in life, and has made some very different friends. She can get us 120g of some reasonably pure heroin by tomorrow night. That's more than enough to buy his ticket to death row. Like I said Marcelle, this stuff is expensive, but it's worth it. Once Gary's dead and buried, you'll have all of his money anyway. I'll loan it to you out of my savings for now, and you can pay me back when it's all over."

"How much?' asked Marcelle.

"Fifty thousand dollars."

To Marcelle, it was just a number. She wouldn't enjoy her life again until Gary was gone, so what was fifty thousand dollars?

(To be continued...)

Farewell Gift [Part 2 of 5]

2009-11-13T15:47:00.000-08:00

Welcome to "Farewell Gift", a 2,500 short story I wrote earlier this year. I've decided to present it to you here on Surge Bin in five parts. Why not start with part 1, and work your way through? Enjoy!

(...continued)
Marcelle was watching the end of Four Corners when Gary arrived home that evening. While Gary fetched a beer from the fridge, she reached for the remote, and turned off the television.

"You're home very late again today," she said. It sounds like I'm accusing him! Calm down.

"Things are pretty hectic, preparing for our meetings in Thailand," said Gary, opening his beer, and taking a long swig.

Marcelle sighed. Thailand. Gary was about to lead a delegation to negotiate a deal with one of the public universities in Bangkok. With both government and corporate funding drying up, this deal was essential for the faculty to remain viable. Marcelle had been very supportive of the extra time Gary had put into this project. If Gary was having a fling with a student however, then the time that he spent with her was probably under the guise of preparing for the Thailand trip.

"I just haven't seen much of you lately," said Marcelle, forcing an apologetic tone.

"I know." Gary sighed. A moment of silence followed, broken by the screeching of car tyres out in the street. Gary spoke quietly, "I think it's fair to say, we've drifted apart over the last few months, even years."

Marcelle wasn't prepared to talk about their relationship tonight. "I know," she said, "but you have a lot on your plate preparing for the Thailand trip, and you leave next week. Can we agree to work things out when you get back?"

Gary sipped at his beer again, seeming to contemplate the offer. "I think that's a very good idea," he said, and then with a little smile added, "Don't do anything rash before I get back, will you?"

Marcelle suddenly saw the truth in his smile, his eyes, and the way that he spoke. Now she was certain. He is guilty as sin and I know what I'm going to do about it. With the decision made, Marcelle found it easier to relax and take charge of the conversation. She asked, "So, how is the preparation going? How many people are going on this trip, anyway?"

"Half the faculty sees it as a junket, and now everyone wants to come along," said Gary. His voice had taken on that slightly patronising tone of his lecturing mode. Marcelle smiled: now that she'd got him started, Gary would simply blather on. Her smile appeared to encourage him, and he continued enthusiastically, "As Dean, and the one who initiated the whole project, I've been very firm on this. There'll be only the six of us. There's the heads of mechanical, electrical and civil, two students, and of course, yours truly."

Gary explained, "The students will give the Thais a bit of a preview of the kind of graduates we can produce. Cindy – your friend Laura's daughter – and Robert are our best two final year students. Their project presentations will really impress."

Marcelle let Gary chatter on about the trip for over half an hour, before she went up to her room, complaining of a headache.

To be continued...

Farewell Gift [Part 1 of 5]

2009-11-12T15:17:00.000-08:00

Welcome to "Farewell Gift", a 2,500 short story I wrote earlier this year. I've decided to present it to you here on Surge Bin in five parts. Enjoy!

"Gary is having an affair, with one of his students," said Laura.

"My Gary?"

"Yes, Marcelle. Your Gary – your husband."

Marcelle sat at the kitchen table, not moving. She felt winded.

"Have some tea," said Laura.

Marcelle sipped the tea, feeling it revive her. "How did you find out?" she whispered. The words caught in her throat.

"Cindy told me, this morning. It must be one of her friends." Laura's daughter Cindy was a final year Bachelor of Engineering student in the faculty that Gary was Dean.

Marcelle nodded slowly. "I suppose she'd know," she said. "Who is it – do I know her?"

"She won't say," said Laura.

"She's got to!"

"If Cindy has had a friend confide in her, she won't breach that trust. I brought Cindy up to make her own decisions about right and wrong. Once she's made that decision, she won't move," said Laura. Before Marcelle could object, she added, "But I've been thinking about that. Does it really matter who the girl is? She's as much a victim as you are! It's Gary that's betrayed you and abused the trust of his position."

Marcelle sipped her tea and nibbled a Tim-Tam as she sat and pondered over the situation. After a few minutes, she realised that Laura was still sitting opposite her at the table. "Sorry, I zoned out for a while."

"Don't be sorry. Right now, you just need a friend. I'm here to help you through this, no matter what."

The women discussed how they should deal with the situation. While Marcelle knew that she wanted a divorce, she also wanted Gary to suffer. "He has abused his position of trust, and needs to be punished for what he did," she said, more than once.

Laura was certain a formal complaint about the affair to the university wasn't the answer. "Say we succeed in getting Gary the sack for taking one of his students to bed. He's not going to get another job in Queensland! If he's lucky, he'll find a position with some second-rate uni across the country, at half the salary. How is that going to benefit you?"

Marcelle frowned. She didn't want to find herself divorced, without a job, and with an ex-husband unable to maintain the lifestyle she enjoyed. She rested her head in her hands and groaned. She had to admit, "I can't see a way out of this mess."

"I can," said Laura.

"How?"

"There is one way that Gary can be removed from being Dean, and be properly punished for what he's done. You would be left with everything. Everything."

Marcelle didn't consider herself a greedy person, but her heart quickened at the thought. "How?" she asked again.

"The same way that I got everything from my husband Ted," said Laura. She took Marcelle's hand in hers. "Just consider: if fate had it in store for Gary to just – pass away – wouldn't your problems be solved? Don't even think about how, for now. Just think about if. Do you want a future without Gary?"

"I don't want a future with Gary - I don't even want to see him again," Marcelle replied, her voice steadier then she expected it to be, "but I'm not certain I want him dead. That's a big call."

"Take some time and think about it. When you're ready, we'll talk again. To keep your options open though, you'll need to act as though you've heard nothing of Gary's affair, for the next few days or so."

Marcelle wasn't sure she'd be able to do that, but knew that she had to. She was glad to have Laura on her side during this time, not just for tea and sympathy, but for practical advice. Very practical advice.

"Look," said Laura, "How things go forward from now on is your decision alone. You will need to live with the consequences, both good and bad, no matter which path you choose."

To be continued...

Rally Car

2009-11-12T07:00:00.001-08:00

This is the first of three (exactly) fifty-word stories that I wrote for the Brian Dibble Shortest Story Competition. I didn't win.

Shane punched the throttle as his Subaru entered the straight. In one beat of his heart he was slowing for the next corner; but he misjudged it, badly. Shane smiled as the car left the track and started to roll. He loved playing with his slot cars.

How to Get Published

2009-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

What defines success for a writer? Most would argue, as I used to, that the aim is to "get published" (and consequently, get read).

But what does is really mean, to get published? Does it mean a hardcover novel deal, or is a blog-based literary journal okay? How about getting published in a newspaper? Let's not even mention self-publishing! (Yes, I mentioned it).

I've discovered just how much writing, and "getting published", really is more a journey than a destination. Getting stories published in a fortnightly magazine like Shift Miner is fantastic. I got a real buzz a few days ago, seeing two people reading Shift Miner at the local airport. Just knowing that these complete strangers were holding my story in their hands - whether or not they even read it - was great. Yet, I know I've only made baby steps on this great writing journey.

So, when in doubt, create another blog! I've recently started a blog called How to Get Published, located at wanttogetpublished.blogspot.com. I'm using it to share things that I've found useful - or not so useful - as I travel along. If you're a writer - or want to be - I'd invite you to go have a look. Please provide comments - and especially suggestions and advice to include. I'd really like to put some "guest blogs" up there, so get writing.

Three Minutes

2009-11-11T02:04:00.000-08:00

The flow of cars has been pulsing to the colours of the traffic lights; hypnotising me as I watch and sip my coffee and daydream. The lights turn to red again, and the cars slow, then stop. They'll need to wait exactly three minutes; I've timed it. The man in the first car turns towards me, and I look straight into his eyes. He is alone in the car. There is unflinching anger in his eyes. It breaks the spell of the traffic, and casts a new one over me.

I don't recognise the man, though he obviously remembers me, and has rekindled his grudge in an instant. His face is vaguely familiar. I should know him, but time has been severe to both his face and my memory. He looks to be about my own age: mid fifties. He wears his grey hair long at the back, almost to his shoulders. His sideburns come down well below his ears, and flare forwards onto his cheeks. His black-banded white panama hat, his long-sleeved black shirt and his hair are the style of a man lingering in the seventies.

He continues to stare into my eyes. He has one hand flopped on top of the steering wheel, and his other arm poking out of the open window, resting on the door frame.

It is the car that triggers my memory. In an instant I remember both car and man. Neil was driving the same tan Kingswood when I last saw him, about fifteen years ago. He had had that same look of loathing on his face then too. I don't know why I didn't recognise him sooner.

I feel guilt return with the memories. Neil was devastated when his wife Sarah left him. What made him angry, was that she and I became an item. He and Sarah had been divorced long enough before that happened. Long enough, I thought. He didn't see it that way.

I tried to reason with him at the time, and begged him to accept us, and what we had: for Sarah's sake. Instead, he chose to keep his grudge and lose two friends. I think he was just too proud to let Sarah find happiness with someone else; especially his mate. It was the usual love triangle story, I suppose. Things were said in the heat of the moment, threats were made, and eventually restraining orders kept us apart.

I keep looking into those sad green eyes. I hope that my own eyes show that I'm sorry for the hurt I caused him.

The light turns to green. Neil nods at me, once, then turns forwards, and drives away. I shake my head, and feel goose bumps down my neck. Maybe next time I'll get him a cup of coffee, and we'll talk; maybe.

A Promise is a Promise

2009-11-09T01:58:00.000-08:00

Johann checked his bait and cast his line back in. He leaned against the rail of the jetty, looked over the deep, dark water, and sighed. He really did not want to be fishing today. His two boys, Nico and Pete, had blackmailed him at breakfast.

"But Dad, you promised," Nico had said, with tears in his eyes. Nico was the older of the pair. At twelve years old, he didn't cry easily any more. "You said you were going to take us out last Saturday; but then you went to work. Then you promised that you'd take us fishing next Saturday, which is today. A promise is a promise, Dad."

"That's all true," said Johann. "But do you still want to go fishing, after everything that's happened this week?"

The boys nodded in unison: slowly, but firmly.

They had gone to the jetty: their usual spot. The sky was overcast and small drops of rain were beginning to spit down on them. The wind bit through their jackets. The tide was all wrong, and none of them had had so much as a bite after a full hour; but, a promise is a promise.

Johann looked over at the boys. Nico was helping Pete thread a prawn onto his hook; explaining again the finer points to attaching the bait to make it attractive to the fish, whilst ensuring the hook protruded enough so it was able to do its job. Both boys had tears running down their cheeks and were constantly sniffling. They ignored their tears; however, and fished on. Johann smiled slightly, and shook his head again. While Johann watched, Pete cast his line into the water. It was a bad shot, and crossed over Nico's line. Without a word, they swapped places to fix the crossover and kept fishing.

An old man braved the weather and came out to the end of the jetty. His hair, combed over from the edges of his mostly bald head, folded over in the wind and flapped like a loose tarpaulin. With his voice raised against the wind, he asked, "Catch anything?"

"Not a bite," said Johann, shaking his head. He began to wind his line in.

The man turned to leave, one hand holding his comb-over down. He stopped and turned back to Johann. "None of my business, of course," he said, "but why are the two lads crying like that?"

Johann glanced at the boys and then back at the man. "We buried their mother yesterday."

The old man's eyebrows flicked up into his forehead, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned and walked briskly back down the jetty.

Johann checked his bait and cast his line back in.

Dying Young

2009-11-07T01:53:00.000-08:00

"Look at your wedding photo," said Thomas, "there on the wall."

Alan looked at the picture and smiled. Two days back from their honeymoon, he and Wendy had picked up the picture from the photographers earlier in the day. He turned back to Thomas. "Do you like it?" he said, then added, awkwardly, "Dad?"

"You sure look a lot like the boy in that picture," said Thomas. He took a tentative sip of his coffee, then eased back into the armchair.

Alan felt his face flush. He knew he looked young, but he didn't need the old-timer to rub it in. He wondered whether Judy would mind if he grew a goatee. Of course she would, he thought. Maybe I'll try in a year or two.

"Have I lost you?" said Thomas.

"Sorry, I was daydreaming."

"I said, 'You sure look a lot like the ...'"

"Yeah," said Alan, "I heard. Look, it's our wedding photo; of course I look like myself."

"Of course you do," said Thomas. He took another sip of his coffee. The temperature seemed more to his liking now, and he took a longer drink.

"Sorry," said Allan. "I just don't know what you're driving at."

Thomas nodded. His eyes showed something like patience, or pity. "Look at that photo over there," he said, pointing to a smaller picture on the bookcase, taken on his own wedding day. It was a studio photograph, with Thomas standing rigidly behind his wife, who was sitting on a straight backed chair. The colours had faded over the years, and insects had left dubious deposits behind the glass. "I don't look much like the boy in that photo now, do I?"

Allan stopped the sarcastic reply that came to his mind before it got to his mouth. Thomas was right, of course; it was a boy in the photograph. Allan looked back and forward between the two pictures to compare them. "You've come a long way," he said at last.

Thomas laughed. His laugh was loud and hard, and shook him all over. He spilled coffee into his lap, but he either didn't notice or didn't care. "That," he said, wiping a tear from his eye, "is a very kind way of saying that I'm an old coot now; and that I really look the part."

Allan smiled.

Thirty seconds of silence passed. Thomas sighed. "It creeps away from you, you know," he said. "Time. Days, weeks, months, years. Decades. Soon you'll have one of those small, trendy beards – though not quite as grey as mine – and then your belly will bulge out from too much food and beer – though not quite as big as mine. And every day you'll look a bit less like that boy." He pointed up to the picture again as he spoke.

Allan recalled how his own father had often said, "It's better to learn something about life from somebody else's experience. It's quicker, cheaper and less painful."

Allan smiled at the memory. The smile seemed to encourage Thomas to go on.

"Getting old is a strange feeling, because you don't feel it. Sure, when you run up stairs you feel it; but when you're sitting down, drinking a cup of coffee, it doesn't matter if your eighteen or eighty-one. On the inside you're the same."

Allan was sceptical, but kept this to himself.

"I always thought they were mad," said Thomas, "when old men said that." He shook his head. "But it's true; it's so true."

Well, I still think you're a little bit mad, old-timer, thought Allan. Aloud, he said, "I thought getting old was all about aches and pains?"

"Oh," said Thomas, "that's true. Getting old is not for sissies: it really hurts. But the aches and pains are in your body, not in your mind. It is a pain to grow old; but consider the alternative."

Allan looked into his father-in-law's eyes. "What's that?"

"Dying young."

Fancy an Espresso?

2009-11-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

I've had a few more Espresso Stories published. I don't seem to rate very high in the popularity stakes over there, but I can't seem to stop myself trying to write a twenty-five word story that wins hearts and minds. It's a big ask.

The new stories:

Together, in Bed

Roughing It

Night Shift

Why Would I Have Suspected Something

My full Espresso Stories catalogue can be found here.

So, do you think I'm wasting my time? Be honest, I can take it.

You Miners Get Paid Too Much

2009-11-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

My latest contribution to the Shift Miner Magazine is "You Miners Get Paid Too Much". I reckon that'll get people's attention. It appears under the "5 minute fiction" heading on page 21 of edition 74, downloadable as pdf for the next two weeks at the Shift Miner Magazine website.

The purpose of "5 minute fiction" is to publish flash fiction stories that appeal to coal miners working on shift in Queensland. This is my second story to appear since Alex Graham, the editor of Shift Miner Magazine (SMM), agreed to trial this new column.

I'm keen to hear what people think, especially the men and women working in the industry that have stumbled across my stories in SMM. What did you like? What didn't you like? What issues, themes and situations would you like to hear about in future "5 minute fiction" stories.

Nine Clubs

2009-10-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

The 3WW Wednesday words this week are heartache, jangle and reckless. A little scene for you:

We play bridge at a small square table in the corner of the staff room over lunch. The game starts when we have our four players. Today I'm partnered with Elka, a Polish woman from the art department. She irritates me in so many ways. Her jewellery is pretentious. She has dangly gold earrings and a golden necklace that looks like a dog chain. There are rings on each finger and countless bracelets on her arms that jangle every time she plays a card.

I could possibly tolerate Elka if she would just eat her lunch and play cards; but for her, this would be a waste of a captive audience. She imposes tales of hardship, misery and heartache on us. She is a perpetual whinger, who complains not only about the present, but also about every wrong committed against her, real or imagined, that she can remember or invent.

Elka is in fine form today, and I'm sick of it. I decide to provoke her further with a reckless bid to eight hearts. She drops her rambling and tells me to repeat my call; she's sure she can't have heard properly. Bob, on my left, doubles my bid. She is stunned now, and tries to rescue us to nine clubs.

The hand is unwinnable, but Elka is silent as she concentrates, trying to make something from nothing. Her pride forces her to fight to the death. I recover my smile as I get myself another cup of coffee and leave the staff room for the fresh spring air. Life's too short to keep playing a game you're not enjoying.

(Edit 28/10/2009: changed "heart properly" to "heard properly". Thanks Mattrozzi.)

Shift Miner: 5 Minute Fiction

2009-10-19T03:10:00.000-07:00

Today, the 73rd edition of Shift Miner Magazine came out, complete with a new section, written by me, called 5 Minute Fiction. The story in this edition is called Lifting Point, and appears on page 21 of the magazine. Shift Miner have recently started their website, where they have a copy of the latest edition available for download in pdf. You've got two weeks to read the magazine before it gets replaced by the next issue.

Shift Miner specifically targets workers in the Queensland coal mining industry, offering them news, opinions and entertainment relevant to the industry. Their business model appears to depend largely on advertisers targeting this same demographic. I'll be trying to write stories that are relevant to the context of mineworkers in this area, so I'm hoping my stories will really "click" with the readership.

I'm very excited to have a regular column in a printed magazine. I'm not sure what this is going to mean exactly, but it can't be bad.

[3WW] I'm Talking to You

2009-10-16T04:22:00.000-07:00

The three words for Three Word Wednesday (3WW) CLIX are "frustrate", "indecent" and "understand". Here's a little scene around that...

"I don't understand why you watch those films. They're rubbish."

"Mum," she said, "I love horror movies."

"They're indecent. They're filth. They will turn you into a tramp. I try to bring you up a good catholic. Why do you throw all that away?"

"It's just for fun, Momma. It's not a religion. It's a fantasy. It helps me forget about school, and stuff; all my frustrations."

"What?" said Momma. "You have it so easy. You're ungrateful. You have nothing in your life to frustrate you, you understand? Nothing! Don't walk away when I'm talking to you. Hey, I'm talking to you."

Ghost Gum

2009-10-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

He dug the hole as quickly as he could. Sweat covered his face and soaked his shirt. The root of a long-dead bush or tree appeared in the bottom of the hole. He attacked it with the edge of the spade. The inside of the root flashed white and fresh against the dirt. Eventually he hacked through it.

After a while, the hole was big enough. He allowed himself a moment, leaning on his spade, breathing hard, to admire his creation. Then he went back to work.

When he walked back to his car, exhausted, he left behind him a freshly planted, well fertilised Ghost Gum. Aptly named, he thought.

(The Ghost Gum is native to Central Queensland).

Peaceful Dove

2009-10-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

She was watering her garden with a hose in the late afternoon when she saw the bird on her lawn, trying to hop away from the water spray. He couldn't fly, and didn't have much strength left for hopping. It only took her a minute or two to corner him against the fence and catch him with her hands. He was a small dove, grey, with black bands on its breast. He didn't look wounded. Perhaps he was sick, she thought, or in shock, after being attacked by a larger bird, or hit by a car. In any case, he wouldn't survive long, if she left him here, outside.

She held the dove firmly but gently in her left hand as she went to find something to put him in. She found a cardboard box. She put some budgerigar seed in the bottom, and a small container with water. The dove didn't move when she placed him on the floor of the box. She placed one of the wire racks from her oven on top of the box. Perhaps he would recover overnight, she thought.

In the morning, the bird was dead. She was careful not to let any tears form in her eyes as she tipped it from the box into her rubbish bin. It was only a bird. It would have died anyway.

(There is a good photo and some info about the Peaceful Dove at this link).

The Fitter's Wisdom

2009-10-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

The fitter struck the end of the coupling with the sledgehammer five or six times, forcing it further onto the shaft. Smoke came from the coupling: it had been heated to help it fit onto the shaft. The apprentice leaned forward with his measuring tape, then shook his head and said something. He moved back as the fitter started into the coupling again. Like a machine, they worked as one: hitting, measuring, moving.

Why, I wondered, had the fitter chosen the hammer instead of the tape? Perhaps he didn't trust the young man with the forceful delicateness of the task, or maybe he was venting the frustrations of working a week-long shift away from his wife and children. As I walked on, I understood the fitter's wisdom. An apprentice must learn to measure more than he must learn to strike.

The Richard Ridyard Affair

2009-09-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

The Richard Ridyard Plagiarism Affair exposed by Angel Zapata in his blog post I've Been Plagiarized…and I'm Not Alone has been both sickening and fascinating. It's sickening because someone stealing words and claiming them as your own has caused even the most left-wing pacifists to sharpen their pitchforks and warm up their tar. I don't need to go into my own diatribes here: we all hate it.

The experience has been fascinating because it demonstrates both the perils and the pinnacles of the online writing world; a world that I entered myself only a few months ago.

The perils of the online writing world are clear. Firstly, there is so much more material to steal now. So many more people now are publishing in online journals, personal websites, blogs and other forums. This new group of available victims are also the most vulnerable. They are the new wave of talent, the up and coming – or at least they're trying to be. Secondly, there are so many new venues to use stolen material; and these are actually the same new places that people can steal from. This was, in part, the undoing of Mr Richard Ridyard, and brings me to the pinnacles of the online writing world.

Mr Richard Ridyard ripped off a number of writers, but he was discovered by Angel Zapata. How? Because Angel was reading a story in Flashshot and recognised his own work, which had previously been published in Micro 100. First pinnacle: every reader of online material has the capacity to recognise something they've read before, and identify a potential word thief.

In Angel's case, this was easy: he recognised something he wrote himself; but we're only talking about two sentences. The first sentence is loosely stolen, the second sentence is a verbatim theft. It's bad, but not compelling enough on its own to do much about it. Yet, something was very wrong: and Angel started digging. We all have the capacity and the responsibility to dig like Angel dug. The second pinnacle of the online writing world: Google. This is such a powerful digging tool, as demonstrated by the ultimately damming body of evidence that Angel was able to collect and present.

Now, Angel got to work immediately. He notifyied some of the editors and authors that he'd identified as victims of Mr Richard Ridyard. He did this both before and after his blog posting, but he had other things to do with his life. Things like work, family and sleep. But Angel was not alone in his rage. The third and greatest pinnacle of the online writing world is that we act like a community. Our community includes writers from a wide range of countries, with a wide range of talent levels. Many of us have had minimal, if any publication. Some of us aren't very good at all. As a community; however, we look out for each other. We read each other's work and make comments, at blogs and social networking sites like Six Sentences.

When Angel exposed a plagiarist in our midst, we worked together as a community to weed him out. We put links to Angel's post on our own blogs to help spread the word. We emailed editors of online journals and authors to let them know they'd been duped. Those editors got back to us very, very promptly. They were thankful and removed Mr Richard Ridyard's "work" almost immediately. This is a real credit to those editors, and the experience has made me realise that they are just as much a part of this online community as the writers. If anything, their passion for good and honest writing greater than any writer: just look at what they do. They're actually more vulnerable to this type of deception than us writers, so we should look out for them.

Let's not abandon the online writing world because of its few perils. Let's build on what we've learned by The Richard Ridyard Affair. Let's embrace the pinnacles of this world-wide community, and work together to eliminate plagiarism and create beautiful writing.

Plagiarism!

2009-09-29T19:28:00.001-07:00

Pplagiarism is a very, very low act. Dark fiction author Angel Zapata has recently discovered that he, and others, have been plagiarised by one Mr Richard Ridyard.

Angel has exposed Mr Ridyard in his blog post I've Been Plagiarized...and I'm Not Alone. I'd like to support Angel in tackling this issue by encouraging you to read his well-researched article. We all need to be aware of the type of things that go on, and the type of people that do it.

The Joke's on You

2009-09-29T15:26:00.001-07:00

I've posted a six-sentence story to the 6s Social Network called The Joke's on You. This was my response to a challenge by Dan to write a story along the lines of the familiar "A man walks into a bar..."

Cheese

2009-09-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

Sunday Scribblings writing prompt #182 is "cheese", which is the title of this little story.

She was a very beautiful woman, from a very upper middle class family. She was way out of his league, but he wanted her anyway. She agreed to go with him to a restaurant for dinner. The place was her favourite, though he'd never heard of it. She took the lead with the ordering, which was fine by him.

"How about some cheese for dessert?" she asked him.
"Sure," he said. That sounded safe; he liked cheese. The date had gone pretty good so far, he thought.

What arrived at the table didn't look like cheese. It didn't smell like cheese, either.

"It's a Tasmanian blue vein," she said, before popping some into her mouth. "It's just heavenly."

If it was heavenly for her, it was going to be heavenly for him. He cut of a bit of the cheese, put it on a cracker, and put the lot into his mouth. He chewed. It was as though something dead had exploded inside his head. In an instant, his nose and sinuses were on fire. His eyes were streaming tears as he stumbled into tables and other patrons, searching for the exit. He didn't make it in time.

She was gone by the time he recovered, and he never saw her again. Later, he married a girl who was a year below him in high school. They are happy together. For them, cheese comes in thin squares, wrapped in plastic.

The Way of the Moth

2009-09-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

April sat on a bench in the garden and watched a moth float by in front of her. The moth´s path was erratic as it flapped along; moving up, down, left and right. Despite it's twisting and turning, its overall path across the garden was, overall, quite direct.

April liked to sit in the garden to be around nature, to relax, and to contemplate. She thought about the moth, and its flight path. The moth's path was a lot like the path of her own life, she thought. She could learn a lot about life, by watching the way of the moth.

A butcher-bird swooped from the tree branch above and caught the moth in its beak. It flew back to its branch. It struck the moth against the branch; once, then twice more, to kill it. It watched April as it swallowed its prey. For long moments, April and the butcher-bird stared at each other. Then, as the bird flew away, she understood about life.

[3WW] Tip Velocity

2009-09-23T21:49:00.000-07:00

Three Word Wednesday (3WW) CLVI words are: eclipse, languish and velocity. Here is my effort, called "Tip Velocity"

David wants to be a published author, in every corner of his soul. Not just a published author, but popular, respected and honoured. Everyone agree these are lofty goals, considering David failed Junior English and mows lawns for a living. For now, however; he continues to languish in obscurity. His only "published" works are those he posts to his online blog, which even his friends and family read only occasionally, and reluctantly.

David's desire to write is such that it can eclipse every other aspect of his life. This helps him get through each day, because mowing lawns can get boring after the first two minutes. While pushing the mower along, he dreams of characters, plots, crises and resolutions.

While pulling the lawnmower back from the edge of Mrs Smyth's garden, he runs over his left foot. It doesn't hurt as much as it should, and it really should hurt a lot with all that blood, he thinks. Mrs Smyth faints when she see's the blood, so he hobbles next door to call for two ambulances.

While David lies in his hospital bed, his friend Allan, an engineer, tells him that the tip velocity of a lawnmower blade is approximately 650 kilometres per hour.

"Thanks for that," says David. "Hey, did you read my blog yesterday?"

"Sorry," says Allan, as he checks his watch and stands up to go, "I didn't."

From Dream to Reality [Alternate End]

2009-09-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

Mattrozzi made the suggestion in the comments to my little story From Dream to Reality that a different ending might have worked better. Here is that same story with an alternate end along the lines he suggested. Only the last paragraph has changed.

The plant rumbled and shook loudly through Ralph's earplugs. It wasn't just noise, though. The plant was talking, and she wasn't happy this morning. A conveyor roller squeaked above the rumble, competing for attention with a loose drive belt on one of the ground floor pumps. The vibration in the plant beat louder every few seconds, then softer, shaking the structural bracing till it clattered. The raw coal screens were out of synchronisation again.

Black dirty water poured, out of control, from the ground floor to swirl around half blocked drains. Ralph splashed his way to the front door. He glimpsed the product stackers out in the yard as he went inside, teasing him with tiny wisps of product that drifted onto stockpiles that were still far too small.

Ralph took a deep breath before making his charge up the three flights of stairs to his office. He started to plan his day on the way up, juggling the priorities. He smiled as he pushed open the door of his office. Being the plant manager was everything he'd dreamt it to be. He would turn this plant around; because now, he could. Now, Ralph didn't hate Mondays anymore.

From Dream to Reality

2009-09-20T21:23:00.000-07:00

The plant rumbled and shook loudly through Ralph's earplugs. It wasn't just noise, though. The plant was talking, and she wasn't happy this morning. A conveyor roller squeaked above the rumble, competing for attention with a loose drive belt on one of the ground floor pumps. The vibration in the plant beat louder every few seconds, then softer, shaking the structural bracing till it clattered. The raw coal screens were out of synchronisation again.

Black dirty water poured, out of control, from the ground floor to swirl around half blocked drains. Ralph splashed his way to the front door. He glimpsed the product stackers out in the yard as he went inside, teasing him with tiny wisps of product that drifted onto stockpiles that were still far too small.

Ralph sighed heavily as he started up the three flights of stairs to his office. One foot in front of the other, gripping the handrail for support, he shuffled to the top. Being the manager wasn't what he'd dreamt it would be. Now, he hated Monday's more than ever.

Once in a while

2009-09-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

See here for a six-sentence story I wrote called Once in a while.

I've had some feedback that the six sentences stories are not as popular. If you want something longer, see my previous post.

Your Optimism, My Faith

2009-09-17T18:14:00.000-07:00

Tristan challenged me to write a short story demonstrating the difference between optimism and faith, as described by what has been called the "Stockdale Paradox", recorded by James C. Collins in Good to Great. See the wikipedia article on James Stockdale for more information.

Thanks to Tristan for pointing out the Stockdale Paradox to me: I hadn't heard of it. I gave this one a lot of thought, and I hope that this story meets the challenge.

I feel a need to note that like everything else on this blog, this is a work of fiction – even if it is written in the first person. I am not, and am not claiming to be, a bestselling author. My name's not John Percival anyway.

Your Optimism, My Faith
A young man approached me out of the airport crowd. He was about thirty years old, with black hair gelled into that messy, just out of bed style. I avoided eye contact until he said, "Excuse me."

I let my book drop a little from my face and turned to him. "Yes?" I said. "Can I help you."

"Sorry to just come up to you like this," he said, "but you are John Percival, aren't you?"

Even a bestselling author, such as myself, is really only a minor celebrity. A 'real' celebrity goes around in his own plane, chauffeured limousine and has his own bodyguards. He's mobbed by fans and paparazzi, but is equipped to deal with it. A minor celebrity like myself, is stuck in the middle. I drive my own car, take regular airline flights like everyone else, and go to the shops without a body guard. Fact is, most people don't know what author's look like, and ninety-nine percent of the time we don't look like the studio portrait on the dust jacket anyway. This time however, I was busted.

"Yes," I said. "As a matter of fact I am."

The man extended his hand, "I'm Nelson. Nelson Hogan; very pleased to meet you, John."

I shook Nelson's hand, and sat down next to me. I wasn't too surprised to be picket out of the crowd. I was in Australia launching my latest book, and it was already on the bestseller chart. I was due to appear on one of the network television breakfast shows in Sydney the next morning.

"I'm really glad to meet you," said Nelson, "because you're my role model".

I'd never heard this one before. "I love your latest book" was more common, followed by some unsolicited advice on how the plot might have been improved. All I managed to reply was, "Oh?"

"I've also written a novel myself and…"

He must have seen the fear in my eyes, because he quickly added, "Don't worry; I don't want you to read it or anything. I've started sending it to publishers. I've already had two rejection slips, but I'm really optimistic about getting it published soon."

"Really," I asked. I was intrigued, having been through the rejection slip phase myself. "What's the basis of your optimism, may I ask?"

"Of course you can ask, John," said Nelson. "You're the reason, actually, that I'm so optimistic. I read somewhere that you had fifty rejection slips from publishers and agents before your first novel was published. I just know that soon someone will say yes to me too."

I smiled, but without humour. There are few things as sincere yet totally ridiculous as unfounded optimism. It scares me. "Actually," I said, "I had fifty-two rejection notes. But tell me, why is the number of rejections that I got relevant to you?"

Nelson paused a moment, and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm not saying my novel is in the same league as yours: I'm just saying that your optimism is my inspiration. Each time I send a letter or an extract to a publisher, I'm at home, expecting them to say yes."

"Can I give you some advice?" I said.

"Please!"

"Stop expecting them to say yes. Stop being that optimistic: it's insane."

Nelson's jaw dropped; literally. Some drool actually escaped down to his chin while he sat, unmoving.

I felt obliged to explain a little further. "It wasn't actually the first novel I wrote that got published," I said.

"What?" He reached with his hand and wiped away the drool.

"That's right," I said. "Once I sent that manuscript off to the first publisher, I starting writing my second novel. Then, whenever I got a rejection note, I sent the manuscript to the next publisher, or agent, and went straight back to writing."

"Why did you keep writing the second novel when the first one was getting rejected?"

"You haven't started writing your second one?"

"No," said Nelson, looking at the floor.

"Then why did you write the first one?" I asked.

"Because I like writing," he said. "I want to be a writer. I think I have a lot to say, I think I can entertain people. I like it. You must understand that."

"I do understand that, " I said. "Why then didn't you start writing your second novel?"

It didn't look like Nelson had given this much thought before. "I suppose I thought I'd better get the first one published. You know, to prove myself; show that I could do it."

"That's funny," I said. "You said you're very optimistic about getting your first novel published, but that you don't seem so optimistic about the second."

Nelson seemed to prefer to ask the question. "You were so optimistic about the publication of your first novel that you started writing your second one; is that right, John?"

"No, I wasn't optimistic at all," I said. "In the end, not being optimistic paid off. Once I finished my second novel, I thought it was a lot better than the first. So, I stopped sending the first one around, and started sending out the second one. And of course, I started on my third novel. That second novel I sent out was the first one I got published – with some major rewrites – by an editor that was willing to give me a go. My first novel stayed on the shelf, and then my third got published."

"He didn't publish your first one?"

"I never showed that editor my first novel," I said. "I wasn't optimistic – I was realistic. I faced the hard fact that fifty-three professionals in the publishing industry didn't think it would fly. Later, I picked up that manuscript again and had another read, and it was terrible! It's so bad; it's not worth rewriting."

Nelson spent a few moments contemplating. "So," he said. "You were realistic, rather than optimistic. What kept you going, then? Was it your love of writing?"

"It takes more than just a love of writing to put that much work in," I said. "What kept me going was my faith in my ability to write, and more importantly, my ability to learn to write better. I had faith that if I kept working at it, I would write something worthy of publication."

"Isn't your faith the same as my optimism?"

"No!" I said, a bit too loudly. Some of the other passengers gave us dirty looks. "No, there is a major difference. Your optimism has you at home expecting a call any moment from a publisher, begging you for the rights to publish your manuscript. My faith kept me writing, knowing that in the end I would get better, and would be published. Your optimism is going to get dashed one rejection at a time until it is completely ruined. You won't get half way to fifty-two rejections before that happens. My faith in my ability to become a better writer is completely independent of external influences. It continued through the time of the rejection letters, and it continues when fans, and even agents, try to tell me that now I'm perfect."

Nelson said nothing for a minute, but looked down at the heavily worn carpet. Then, very quietly, he said "I don't really see the difference. Faith or optimism: it's the same."

The lady speaking into the public address system announced that my flight was now boarding.

I turned to Nelson as I grabbed my bag and stood up. "Think through what I've said again; a lot. This is critical, not just to your writing career, but to your whole life. If you don't see the difference soon, you'll die of a broken heart."