Competition entries

Rachel Champion

Perfect Balance

Hands on my waist, gently guiding me around. I fall into a graceful spin, feeling slight release. I twirl in delight and am both disappointed and relieved as strong hands grip mine, pulling me firmly forward and to the next step. We are so different in how we see things, how we do things. We never exactly…agree…and yet everything always works out exactly right. I cannot live without Fate and the resolute determination of what should come next. But Fate cannot survive without my need to be wild and explore. I am Free Will and I love to dance.

[Inspired by the cover of "A Dance with Fate", Juliet Marillier, PanMacmillan]

Megan Anderson

I Know How to Roll

This is my deathbed? It’s not what I imagined, but that’s definitely me down there.

I look pasty, speeding through the mallee in a Troopy, tasting blood. My hands are tied. It’s baking in the back. Strangled power ballads caterwaul from the maniac at the wheel. I swim in and out, gurgling a hitchhiker’s lament.

Floating above the scene, things look grim: red dirt for weeks, no-one for days, loon with a hammer. The light’s my best bet.

I’m going –

Deep corrugations judder through the chassis like a jackhammer. The tailgate clatters open. My Blundstones twitch.

– but maybe not today.

[Inspired by the cover of "Banjawarn", UWA Publishing]

Gillian Carter

Gone

She’s waving at me, white water swirling around her feet.

Infinite blue stretches beyond the horizon, ocean dancing in the sunlight. The splash of waves is a lullaby and I drift on its music.

It goes silent. A familiar maelstrom of panic pulls me to the surface.

She isn’t there.

White water still swirls where she stood, creeping over shoreline, dragging sand into deep retreat.

I wake gasping for air and pad silently to her room.

She stirs. “Mama?”

Shrugging at my sad smile, she picks up her phone, blue light reflecting the ocean in her eyes. She is gone.

[Inspired by the cover of "Tiny White Lies", Fiona Palmer, Hachette]

Erin Middleton

The Next Stop

He stood in solitude, untouched, as the wind coiled around the corners of the bus shelter.
Fingerprints on the glass reflected in the headlights of passing cars as they always did during winter.
The unfamiliar lightness of his school bag weighed on his mind. No more books meant no more bullies.
He looked at the graffiti marked on the map of the bus route. It hadn’t been cleaned in 7 years.
As the bus approached for his last ride, he stepped forward before taking a final glance back.
Manhood was on the horizon, and it was a shorter walk home.

[Inspired by the cover of "Invisible Boys", Holden Sheppard, Fremantle Press]

Samantha Boswell

Tiny white lies

You are 57 years old with an immunocompromised partner. You were an invaluable human resource. There was white noise like tinnitus, persistent static. Restructuring. You performed pandemic audits. Meetings followed: Conference room herding; facilitator-led deep dives; after standups, sketch notes were emailed as transparent accounts of concerns and decisions. The workload tripled. Tiny white lies spread by rhizome. You were assured that no jobs would be lost. Then people who interviewed failed panel selections, and disappeared. While working from home, calm descended even as covid updates called “the only source of truth” crescendoed. You chose retirement. And disappeared, too.

[Inspired by the cover of "Tiny White Lies", Fiona Palmer, Hachette]

Julie duxbury

Knock Knock

Opening the, I shone my torch around. Phil stood with me and shone his torch but nothing showed up. I shrugged.
'Let's get back to the game,' I turned and trudged back to the kitchen coming to a complete stop when I got there. My jaw dropped in shock as I took in all the open cupboards and drawers. 'Okay, who else is here, Macey?' I asked suspiciously.
'No-one. Oh! Look at that! Rocky, did you do that before you got to the lounge room?' Macey asked.
'Wasn't me, I didn't have enough time to do all that.'

[Inspired by the cover of "Hometown Haunts", Poppy Nwosu (ed), Wakefield Press]

Natalie Leitao

The Fly

The Fly
There was a buzz. Then a tickle. Then a gulp. The fly that had been buzzing and pestering Rico had ventured into the lip-rimmed cave that was Rico's mouth. The tickle at the back of Rico's throat was the fly's wings failing to make the gear change into reverse. As Rico gulped there was a look of horror on his face as he realised he had swallowed a fly.
Rico grimaced. Then spat. Then surveyed with disgust the blood in the dust and the body of a half-fly And he wondered with dismay what was happening to the other half?

[Inspired by the cover of "Blood in the Dust", Bill Swiggs, Allen & Unwin]

Louise Burlinson

Memento Mori

Morgan holds his breath while greedy fingers scrabble in the hessian bag. He’s arranging the daybreak’s findings, snatched from gritty sand. The objects, meticulously placed, cause a mean smile to flash over his gaunt face. Gull feathers, sticks, stones.
‘Break my bones,’ he snorts. Rotting seaweed and dank beach odours fill his nostrils.
His neighbour Sebastia, also his local witch, can fix everything now. Morgan’s collected all she’s demanded for her ‘Scatteraven’ magic. His hands, knuckles crusted with blood - not his - shake. Inspecting the smaller skull he’ll eventually keep as a memento, he almost misses Sebastia’s muted knock.

[Inspired by the cover of "Taboo", Kim Scott, PanMacmillan]

Margaret Merga

Sentinel

I stand on the shore, eyes on the churn and froth, waiting.

They say I’m crazy but I know you’re not dead. You’ve pulled the water over your head and are hunkered down, maybe sleeping, gathering strength.

We fought untiring, neither bested until we reached the end of the world. I drove you into the waves and you staggered, finally fearful, your strength licked out by a hundred lashing kisses. Back and back again until the ocean closed over your head.

You left me here hollowed by my love for you, afraid of what the wind is saying.

[Inspired by the cover of "A Dance with Fate", Juliet Marillier, Pan Macmillan]

Andrew Kelly

Senses as a Service (SaaS)

My eyes stopped working again. A blur of blue-white static filled my vision as I stumbled down the busy footpath. “Damnit,” I cursed aloud. Against the field of digital snow a helpful dialog box offered to switch me over to the free plan. I sighed and blinked twice letting the ads play. Effectively blind, people pushed past me while my vision was taken over by dancing mops and political messaging. My hearing payment was due next week, and if I didn’t find work soon I never would. Stuck in the quicksand of poverty, struggling all the way to the bottom.