Winter Microfiction: Edition Three – Fiction from the Fog

By the Geelong Cereal Community

Welcome to the third edition of the Geelong Cereal Community's collected microfiction! This month has yielded the most submissions to date, and once again we're thrilled to present a diverse collection of the thoughtful and reflective as well as a good measure of the comedic and the absurd.

Special thanks to those who sent in photos of the fog (if we were an Australian variety show from the 1980's, we might have termed them "Foggy Fotos" but thankfully the 80's are long gone, and they can't hurt us any more).

As we have a few members currently travelling, or residing far, far away, we've introduced a Special Correspondent lable for those authors (surely reporting on horrors from afar is worthy of such a title!) and we invite anyone travelling during future call-outs to do the same.

Many thanks to all of our contributors; you should be very proud of this magnificent collection and we are very grateful for your enthusiastic participation.

Fog
By Denise Main

The fog thickened as the bus crawled along the narrow road, only red tail and braking lights of car ahead, visible. Everything else lost in a white shroud that enveloped us since we left town and drove into it.

The thirty passengers were on the edge of their seats as the bus slowed in response to the front car’s erratic braking lights. There was little movement as we all lapsed into a hush of tension.

Fogs always unsettled me, apart from feeling powerless while in its white clutches, they gave me a sense of being in strange, unfamliar places, or in another time.  

‘Quite spooky,’ I said to the bus driver hunched over the wheel, eyes fixed on the road and the brake lights ahead.

‘Yes, and the driver up front isn’t helping,’ and through the PA said, 

‘Thanks everyone for remaining calm, the best way. We’ll just crawl along, maybe the fog will soon lift.’

Passengers clapped their appreciation. 

 Suddenly, on a bend, the brake and hazard lights of car ahead flashed as the car slewed, and crunched to a stop against a ghostly tree, its lights dim in the fog.

‘Flames,’ a passenger yelled. 

‘Stay aboard,’ The driver called, grabbing fire extinguisher and torch, rushed out followed by a young man showing his police credentials. They raced to the stricken car. The extinguisher doused the flames; the policeman shone the torch into the car.

‘Can’t see anyone. Something strange here, all doors locked, no sign of anyone or them getting out.’

‘I’ll smash a window.’ With a covered arm the young man smashed the glass, reached and unlocked the door. Radio still on, bag on seat, perfume, silence.

‘Helloo, Cooee,’ they called. Everything was still. The fog had absorbed sound, sight, even the occupants of the car. 

AMENDED FORECAST: the vagueness of weather
by Jo Curtain

Because it is morning, I shake off the fading hands of sleep—this remnant of a last dream— to imagine the shape of the day. Out the window it’s still: just the vagueness of weather, black coffee, and the vapour of my breath. It feels like tears sliding down something linear yet malleable, distilling the question: What is the mood of the weather? Is it fine? Are you fine? These thoughts clamber to the beach along an invisible road. Standing at the edge of the dunes, I feel a flickering sense of self as boundaries unravel, until there is no trace of the sky in the sky. Eyes squint in the silvery light at something triangular and granular— crumbling ochre ruins looking out over water. Dissolving silhouettes wade in the shallows. These words grip the fragility even as I come undone— until out of this slow-shifting morning— I can move forward in the stillness. 

I Was Just a Kid
by Jacinta Orillo

I don’t quite know what to say. I guess it’s a confession, or an admission of some sort. 

There’s not much time so I have to write quickly. It doesn’t matter where I am anymore, as long as there’s a fog it comes for me. Each time it gets a bit closer.

We were kids, just about to start High School.

He used to hang around the streets, just cruising around on his bike. No one was quite sure where he lived, or who his parents were. He wasn’t a bad person, maybe I was. Maybe it’s why this is happening to me.

One day the fog was so thick that I’m convinced the sun didn’t show, much like today.

My parents had told me not to go near the quarry. It was flooded and no one knew how deep it was. There wasn’t a fence around it back then….

That’s when I saw him, a dark shape racing alongside me. We were both as shocked to see each other. The fog was so dense, we were only a few metres apart before we realised how close we were.

He grinned at me and then sped off. I was never one to pass up a race. We hurtled through the back streets. Before too long the houses had thinned out and we were out in the country, and then the quarry.

I was out front, I was winning! But then the ledge of the quarry dropped away. I slid my bike out to stop, landing hard, skin peeling from legs.

He didn’t see it in time….

A single shout echoed off the rocks, followed by a distant splash. Then nothing more…. 

I was just a kid, what could I do? I didn’t even know his name, or where he lived. No one noticed him missing. He just ceased to exist. Or so I thought….

Every time there’s a fog I see the distant shape. Every time it gets a bit closer. The fog usually clears up before I can see him.

But today the fog has lasted for too long. I saw him this morning by the gate. It’s the afternoon now.

I know he’s in the house. I hear his sodden footsteps. 

Oh God, he’s just outside the door.

I was just a kid. I -

A Foggy Start
By Steve Gray

‘It’s foggy outside, Susan, Sue!’ she looked up from the warm covers of the bed and mumbled, ‘What?’ ‘It’s foggy outside, and it’s really thick.’ She rolled over and then exclaimed, ‘Well, as long as it’s not foggy inside.’

It’s obviously way too early for her; for me it’s a standard wake-up time, and to see the fog so thick is wonderful. Mind you, I’m glad I’m not driving somewhere in it; I can sense a few near misses and the odd actual bang. Dang, that would be a crap start to someone’s day.

I stand by the glass door and continue to look at the fogginess of the fog. Perhaps it’s ‘fogilicious.’ I chuckle to myself; I just made up a silly word. There was one I mustered up last week, and do you think I can recall it? It sounded so real. It started with a C. Confabulous, there, that’s a new one, but not the one I had originally thought of; it was somehow better. I’m glad I wrote that one down; oh, am I the King of silly words? Now there’s a thought, me as a King, I’m a lord, and that’s in writing, by ‘Oh my Lord you are now King, King of the silly words.’

The fog is still foggying; oh there I go again, another silly word. I turn to head off and feed the animals, of which I am one; the dogs get their feed first and then I. Well, actually I munch on a few things while making up their feed. Another day, another foggy start. Heater on, poised at the computer and Voila some more words on a page, go me!

Left Behind
by Karen S, Special Correspondent for Foggy Affairs
Reporting from New Zealand

The couch sat out in the wet fog, watching cars drive home. It remembered, how once it was warm and dry. It sat in the store like a celebrity while people admired it. Some would take the time to sit down with it and stroke it’s fabric. People would ask their families if they should take it home. It felt wanted then.

The couch fondly recalled being admired by a young couple, bundled into the back of a truck and taking the pride of place in their elegant lounge room. Guests came over and admired it. Children arrived and lovingly climbed all over it. The couch, watched those children grow and felt part of the family.

One morning, the couch was blindsided. The couple looked at it and decided it was getting old and needed replacing. Still, the couch expected it would be moved into one of the children’s bedrooms where it would still be apart of their lives.

Now, the couch sat out in the wet fog, watching people return to their families. It sat there alone, cold with only the warmth of it’s memories.

Ode from those Owed
by Brett J Cole

Be you dust, be you flesh,
we shall find you.
And nary a shred of peace will you feel.

Be you bone, be you wisp,
we shall bind you.
And all of your name we will steal.

Be you spent, be you full,
we shall drain you.
And forever more, of you, we'll take.

We'll ever more hound
and harangue you.
To make of your spirit and tears a fine lake.

Only then, 'neath the sun might you shine.
A mercy for you, who brought darkness.

Two Sentence Horror Stories

~ Peer Reviewed ~
By Brett J Cole
"Purgatory," they laughed, "there's no such thing!" And they repeated this again and again and again...

~ Fixer Upper ~
By Brett J Cole
There's a "Room Vacant" sign at that rust-toned crimson house again. It's always repainted soon after.

Plastering
by Greg Fisk

Oh God - there is still more plastering.
The work of days
lies as dust upon the floor.

The Cannon at Noon
By Peter McDonald, Special Correspondent for Horrifying Affairs Reporting from Western Europe

No one know who fires the cannon from the top window of the Tower of Zagreb at noon. Is that a ghostly figure in the window I spy, trapped within the walls for eternity and cursed to mark the midday hour each day?

~ Installation ~
By Brett J Cole
He asked for immortality and it was granted. Time passed and when none else lived to see it, the statue he was remained without audience upon that barren land.

~ The Wonders of Nature ~
By Brett J Cole
Butterflies emerge having completely stolen the souls of sleeping caterpillars. Moths emerge when the battle is only half won.

Two Sentence Serials

Count 2 Ten: Part 3 - Them Old Mephitic Blues
By Martin Smith
Previous episodes

'Twas the Queen's birthday long weekend, and the Count eased forward with his mouth salivating and his fangs glinting under the light of a blue moon as his cephalic phase response kicked into overdrive at the thought of the royal feast before him.

But, alas, the Count released a scream of horror, and a recoil of even more horror, for there before him on the queen’s sheets on the queen’s bed in the queen’s chamber lay not Anne of Cleeves—a woman whom Henry VIII described as “nothing fair” and of “evil smells”—but her second cousin thrice removed, Anne of Cloves, who had a head like a dropped Tudor pie, a snore that could wake the living dead, a ghastly goitre the size of a Cthulhu and a desperate need of a Tic Tac, given her mephitic, repulsive garlic breath.

The Price of a Platitude: Part Two
By Mel King
Previous episodes

I, ἀkoinos logos – dweller within your Earth, and gleeful punisher of what you, in your childish tongue, term "platitudes" – could not have imagined greater satisfaction than when, moments after punishing the first of you pointless chittering insects, I heard the bearer of one of your so-called fine-art auction houses declare that “the best things in life are free” (seemingly in reference to the warmth and light of my sky-dwelling father, and the gentle sound of lapping waves, moved as they are at the whim of my mother) as the utterer, my next student, human, pale and gluttonous, lounged upon the deck of an obscene floating palace.

The delicious sounds of shock and outrage (as urgent phone calls and emails began their assault) pale in comparison to my delight in this present moment, however, as yet another sacred, permissive utterance has already reached my ears, and so to Australia I dance joyfully now, throwing myself delightedly at one of your blessedly human-free oceans to skip as you might skip a stone, with one bounce, two bounces, five bounces, seven, because a trite and foolish woman has just informed her ageing father that “when you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”

SCILLA: Part two
By Lella Cariddi OAM
Previous episodes

While waiting for Tita to be cleared by Customs, I peer down. The platform on the pier is heaving with welcoming parties slicing the light with hundreds of welcoming streamers. Such a momentous occasion! The thought of getting off the ship after weeks of not being able to communicate with any of the 879 English speaking Ten Pound Poms, is pure elation.  

Tita stops pushing her suitcase, gathers me into her tense body, pushes a scrap of paper into my hand, and sobbingly pleads: Marzia, this is my address, promise to write.I hadn’t seen Tita cry before, but don’t know if she’s shedding tears of joy or regret. More for my sake than hers, I say: I promise. I release myself from her hold and cast my eye across Port Phillip Bay where the Grande Dame Melbourne (we now call ‘Naarm’), appears to be winking at me, as if to say: ‘Things at first may be shitty, but don’t worry, you’ll get on top of it’. 

Teetering down a Jacob’s ladder wearing four-inch stilettos and a blue-grey batwing coat with a raised collar a la James Dean, I take in the panorama surrounded by sawtooth roofed factories …never seen a roof like that before…but a male voice from behind interrupts my reverie: ‘KEEP MOVING LADY’.

From my vantage point I look down and spot my father emerging from the throng. Throwing one foot in front of the other, I find myself on solid ground. Steady myself. Six years have passed since my father left my mother, my brother Sandro and ten years-old me for new adventures in Australia. And I am here to start afresh. My father envelops my naïve sixteen-year-old body with a bone crushing hug and wet kisses me. I feel uneasy- don’t know what to say.

Randompedia II
By Martin Smith
Previous episodes

Torquigener is a genus of pufferfishes native to the Indian and Pacific oceans, with a single species ranging into the warmer parts of the east Pacific. Compared to most of their piscine relatives, that species’ colours (and personalities) are relatively dull. The species Torquigener albomaculosus has been described as ‘the least fittest of aquatic creatures’ due to a diet high in salt and a two-packs-a-day smoking habit. Recent clinical trials involving the application of nicotine patches have seen an increase in species longevity, though increased mood swings and appetite resulting in weight gain have been co-reported.

The Fire Pit People: Part Two
By Em Lourex
Previous Episodes

The wind rattled the windows and banged on the front door like an angry visitor. A quick glance through the window confirmed her worst fear; the tarpaulin, meant to protect the contents of the fire-pit, had instead acted as a sail, lifting the mesh cover right off. The tarpaulin was now crackling in the branches of a neighbouring tree.

The holiday house next door was empty; much of the street was vacant during the week in mid-winter.

She ran outside in the howling wind, with a raincoat not on her body but held fast over the fire-pit, in spite of her growing certainty that she had hallucinated the entire thing, and that perhaps a month of working in relative isolation had taken its toll.

The rain and wind continued long into the night, and she sat, wet and miserable, arms now stiff and aching from holding that raincoat tightly over the fire-pit, in pitch blackness, the wind still so loud she could barely hear the ocean crashing only a few hundred meters away.

Some time before the sun crept over the water, past the wind-swept dunes and into the sky, the storm stilled and she ran inside to grab the camera, cursing herself for not putting it on the charger at very least.There was just enough battery life remaining for three zoomed-in snaps of the little cave in the fire-pit before the camera switched off. The wind and rain began anew, but on the live view, she had spotted her tiny counterpart, curled up on a dry gum leaf, floating precariously in the coal-cave.It seemed the tiny person was real, and her all-night efforts had saved a life. The thought bolstered her as she sat for three more hours, the risen sun now obscured by rain clouds. 

The Night: Part Three
By Melissa Bonneau, Special Correspondent for Horrifying Affairs – reporting from South Central Canada

What awesome nights these have been, she thinks to herself, scratching kitty behind the ears. Great company, good food, and a sound-track of screaming and begging.

Earlier, the voice from under the stairs tried to bargain for a pre-mixed vodka and orange.

What ever made him think he would get that? She offered just the orange, and after some time, he decided to settle.
"Fine, I'll just have the orange."
"Good" she said brightly, and slid a dish of water under the door instead.

"If you stop whining, you might find yourself in a better mood!" she told him, but instead he begged for some healthy food (she gave him ice-cream) something nice to drink (more water), and some fresh air (she gathered some in a paper bag and slid that under the door as well).

He moaned on and on. There was no pleasing him. He wasn't even grateful when she gave him a clean bucket.

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Costa Hall, Geelong, Victoria, Australia
1st March 2026
By Adam Stone

Transported to a windswept prairie on a dreamy soundscape, harmonies tight with songs of box cars and lovers.
No frills; she in a black dress, he in double-denim and white Stetson hat.
Exquisite guitar playing. She remains still. He pulsates to the rising buzz of the crowd.
They hold us.

Jungle Giants
By Greg Fisk

Jungle Giants at Barwon Heads Hotel.
Three bands - all good.
The Tullamarines (from Adelaide, not the airport) are still getting better. Jungle Giants have great beats and an awesome light show. I don't have another 20 words

Senny Vs Sony – A Headphone Comparison
By Mel King

My Sennys have few features
Their bluetooth range is crap
They do not answer calls
Sometimes they hiss and crack
But forward angled drivers saturate ear canals
Reverberating soundscapes, loud as hell.

Sony's failure flagship has no game
Within a week they were retired
To my electronic drawer of shame

Thanks again everyone. We'll be back in September with the next installment of the Geelong Cereal community's collected microfiction!