Microfiction Monday – Edition Two
by the Geelong Cereal Community
Congratulations, everyone, on another fantastic response to our winter microfiction call-outs! Please enjoy another clever, thought-provoking and diverse collection of micro-stories.
We are pleased to welcome new contributors to this edition, and we couldn't be more pleased with what has been another enthusiastic and creative response from the growing Geelong Cereal community.
Some of you have had the delightful notion to begin writing micro-serials, and we are also thrilled to feature the first of our all-new, fifty-word reviews!
We are also very pleased to feature more photography by our contributors this edition. Some relates to the stories featured, and some is simply "micro" themed! Keep it coming, folks.
You should be very proud of this great collection we are building together.
A Single Line
by Ferris Knight
I expected it to be finding grey hair, wrinkles lining years of felt emotion, a curvature of the spine, something like that to tell me I was getting old.
Instead, it was being out until not-even-ten-o'clock and being ready to go to bed, wrapped in an electric blanket I'd splurged on and downing two melatonins and a multivitamin.
My mother's face is lightly scarred with joy. Whisps around the corners of her mouth, billions of dollars spent annually to hide memories of weddings, births, holidays, family and friends.
She had me when she was younger than I am now. Instead I am dancing in the kitchen, making dinner for one at four in the afternoon (I forgot breakfast for the two-hundredth-and-seventeenth day in a row) to pop-punk songs from my teenage years. She ran around after a small child, reading to her and making sure she got to school on time with a nutritious breakfast. My maturity is shown through setting an alarm to feed my cats and no longer scrolling down the windows to blast whatever is on the radio.
Three to two to one to twelve to eleven to ten to nine, the beating drum replaced by a soothing strum of an acoustic guitar. Once a bourbon before bed, now a cup of tea. Together we take a drag from our respective cigarettes. Forever young until consequences one day not so suddenly appear.
When did this happen? I realised I measured age in events, not time, and that I felt behind. A generation with different expectations, now not far from that first grey hair, that first line etched in in the forehead that sneaks up on you rather than pounces.
Would I feel like I felt at twenty if I downed my melatonin with a shot of Jack?
Heatherhill Road
by Jacinta Orillo
We’ve all heard of haunted houses, but I wonder... is it possible for a house to haunt us?
I distinctly remember the dream. I was standing in the living room of my childhood home, staring blankly at the fireplace which had never worked. It had been painted a hideous white, enamel paint after we moved in back in the late 1980’s.
I could hear talking in a nearby room. The house had been sold and was to be demolished. Suddenly I began howling with tears only to realise that, upon waking I was also crying.
That morning I looked up my old address, eyes widening as I saw that it had been listed for sale.
For fourteen years three generations of my family had lived at one time in that place; essentially two separate houses joined together by a hallway and sharing a laundry. It had been sold in the early 2000s and I’d not given it much thought in the past twenty years.
My heart began racing as I scrolled through the real estate photos. What had they done?!
Due to the size, it had been converted to a student house, providing cheap accommodation for those that attended the nearby university.
I stifled a cry of shock; the place was nearly unrecognisable. Tears pricked at my eyes the further I scrolled through, each photo feeling like a slap to my face.
Gone was the pink bathtub, which had delighted me as a child.
The veggie patch which my grandfather had toiled endlessly over was now dug up.
The beautiful Canadian Maple in the front yard, although the bane of our lives in autumn, had been cut down.
The courtyard outside my grandparent’s kitchen, where the most beautiful fernery had grown, instead turned into a communal frat house hangout, overgrown with weeds, the ferns rotten, full of cheap outdoor chairs surrounding a makeshift fire-pit.
Other, more painful memories stirred….
The front door, which my mother had slammed in my father’s face, screaming at him to never return.
The study, where my grandfather had suffered a sudden, fatal heart attack.
“Did you see Heatherhill Road is listed for sale?” I’d asked when I last saw my brother.
“Yeah…I drove past it.” A look came over his face and he turned away from me.
“It’s a knock-down job,” he continued “and thank God for that, now we can move on.”
Somehow though, I didn’t find his words comforting.
Randompedia
by Martin Smith
Clementine the Unfortunate (26 May 1478 – 26 December 1534) was the twin sister of Pope Clement VII, whose papacy ran from 19 November 1523 to his death on 26 December 1534. She would have succeeded her brother and become the first female head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States had she not been crushed to death at the opening of the 1534 Boxing Day Sales.
Give Me Space
by Brett J Cole
I absolutely hate it when someone knocks at the door unannounced. Especially now, being on a solo space expedition.
Cold
by Joan Leversha
Tis cold, so cold
No good for the old.
Family Dinner
by Brett J Cole
Deborah always hated it when it was her turn to host Christmas dinner and we'd already been under so much pressure and arguing all day, so it makes sense that I just panicked and shut the door on Deborah along with her rabid parents and siblings.
And while those furious words she'd thrown at me soon gave way to screaming, before that screaming gave way to moaning, it's the moaning I can't stand now after four long, tiring days of it... so I'm about to open that door and just let that undead family eat me.
Point Neuf – la caverne de l'obscurité
by Peter McDonald
As I wander across the Pont Neuf on my way into Paris I suddenly become engulfed in an unfamiliar cave. As I venture further and further and the light fades and fades, I begin to fear that I might never make it out to the other side.
Sparkling Debate
by Brett J Cole
I woke up one day and realised the whole world was on fire, just a blazing inferno everywhere, and yet no one else seems to see it.
I'm trying to prove that it's not all in my head - yet again - by lighting another match.
SCILLA – Part One
By Lella Cariddi OAM
July,1950. I am leaning over the guardrails of the SS ORCADES, thinking of home and all I left behind. Howling gales rushing from the Southern Ocean blow my long, curly hair into an unravelled mess. I hear a shudder coming from the ship’s belly and panic percolates through my chest. I want to scream, but I am voiceless. When I open my eyes a squat dowager Melbourne town comes into view.
Years later, Arnold Zable wrote that for his family and other refugees and migrants who came to Australia to start a new life, Station Pier is a sacred site. I like the idea of a church steeple on the Station Pier’s platform.
On the way to my below-deck cabin to collect Tita, my travelling companion, I’m caught in a stampede of female passengers who, like a fleet of mice running towards a mound of cheese, are heading to the Customs counter, where once they’re given the all clear, they scan the black-and-white photo for recognition in the crowd of the husband they married, but have yet to meet, and teetering on high heels, one-by-one, they exit.
As Tita and I line up for customs to check our cases, torrential rain starts drumming on the steel roof of the Customs House. After what seems an eternity, a corpulent moustached Customs Officer with a beery breath sternly says: ‘Open your luggage.’ I remove my right-hand glove and oblige. He upturns my two suitcases, spills my worldly belongings on the counter, and starts the contraband litany: Salami? Me politely: ‘No.’ Cheese? ‘No.’ Olive oil? ‘No. ’Seeds of any kind? ‘No.’ Firearms? I’ve had enough, NO! He scratches a black tick of approval on my surname SCILLA, painted white on the lids of my suitcases, pushes them down the counter, and bellows: NEXT.
The Night – Part Two
(See Edition One for Part One)
by Melissa Bonneau
She tells herself she definitely needs to take better care of herself. She walks through the aisles, selecting healthier choices. What she craves are snacks. Ok. Fruit, nuts and dairy are covered.
The cashier rings up her chocolate-covered cherries and almonds and her whipped cream, and of course tuna for kitty.
Now home, she slides these through the gap under the door beneath the stairs and eats a salad, pretending not to hear the pleas for some healthy food.
Kitty purrs while he nibbles at his tuna.
The Firepit – Part One
by Em Lourex
She peered within the rusty, moss-filled firepit, utterly delighted. Here – this was the perfect place to try out the extreme close up feature of her little red waterproof camera.
Rain poured and pooled between burnt coals and sand and patches of moss, and she was sure if she got the angle just right, it would look like a landscape of cliffs and pools. But there, inside a spiderweb covered cave, it couldn’t be, could it? She snapped the shot several times, and then, puzzled, took the camera inside to further zoom in with her laptop.
It was unmistakable. There, in the burned log cave, standing on a coal, with water swirling around her feet, a tiny, impossibly small version of herself, holding aloft an even tinier red camera.
Shocked, and now rather worried, she ran outside to move the firepit out of the rain, finding to her dismay that it was stuck fast in the overgrown grass, and that to dislodge it would mean shaking it vigorously from side to side. That wouldn’t do at all – it would cause something like an earthquake for this tiny, newly discovered person.
Hastily, she grabbed a tarp from the garage and covered the firepit, hoping the rusty mesh cover would be enough to keep the wind from blowing it away. What must she think in there, the tiny impossible photographer in Fire Pit Land, to have the rain suddenly stop and the sky become a dark, crackling, tarpaulin blue?
Two Sentence Serials
Life Sucks – Part Two: Even the Living Dead Have Brain Farts
(See Edition One for Part One)
By Martin Smith
The Count had waited a lifetime—and more—to join the living dead on their nightly benders. But, alas, he released a scream of horror, for his plans were thwarted as he went to leave as he’d be buggered if he could remember his PIN to exit his coffin.
The Price of a Platitude – Part One
By Mel King
I am ἀkoinos logos, forged in the primal fires of ἀkoinotopia, within your earth, beneath your sea, and for just one of each 365 revolutions of this world around our father (who considers you guileless ornaments you ought know), I am granted leave to walk among you, punishing your offensive platitudes with specificity that knows no mercy.
No sooner did I rise to your flimsy surface world this morn when I heard one of the sacred permissive utterances – “what doesn’t kill you can only make you stronger” – and with glee I leapt across your wastelands to find he who witlessly invited me to summon my tools, escort him into a timeless room and spend nineteen centuries carving him into the strongest (and least sane) mortal that currently walks upon this world, yet not even ten minutes of my glorious day beneath the father-light have yet passed.
Grace
by Adam Stone
Her guttural growl belies her diminutive frame.
With a Nick Cave-like poetic snarl,
she sings of gods and kings and queens.
Of guns and love and forgiveness.
As she wrangles the Gibson draped around her neck,
raw emotion sweeps us up in a charismatic movement.
Visceral. Real.
I’m a convert.
The Bear
by Brett J Cole
The Bear, in its entirety, is like a culmination of your own misgivings that might plague you at 3am, but also with a glimpse into the 3am thoughts others might have about yourself. It's uncomfortably raw, but with the beauty 4am holds once you make peace with that restless hour.
Folky Punky English Guy
by Mel King
Admittedly, I don’t listen to your music at home.
I still squealed when you announced a tour.
So thrilled to play for us!
So much love for your crowd!
Your infectious grin turns the room into a hive.
For a couple of hours, we are joyful drones moving as one.
If you'd like to contribute to fifty-word reviews, just remember, you can review anything you like, just be creative, and do it in fifty words!
Thanks again to everyone that contributed to this collection – we can't wait to see what comes in for the next microfiction edition! We look forward to publishing more microfiction, more micro-serials, and more fifty-word reviews in July.
Stay tuned for announcements and keep the stories coming folks.
-The Geelong Cereal Team
