Don’t ask me about causality or butterfly effect stuff.
A quick scan of the results in the evening on my phone and a nonchalant bit of litter beside the bed was our ticket to financial independence.
Just had to keep the wife away.
WENDY, OF COURSE, KNEW. Well, she didn’t know know, but she sensed something was amiss. Extra money was hard to hide, and she interrogated me.
“No comment, no comment,” like a politician probed about the future.
The “where do you see yourself in five years?” interview question. Ambition is prized in other fields. Politicians can’t admit as much to the party leader.
Life continued like that for some time. I’d risk an argument to leave a cryptic scrap of paper by the bed, and thankfully I doubt Wendy’s tried figuring it out yet. She could easily discover how the clock-radio worked, and then donate it to a museum.
It’s changed me. I buy Wendy small gifts from time to time, but instead of bringing us closer, I only arouse suspicion.
Droughts are the long periods between when the parched country can suck average rainfall from the clouds. They’re longer, deeper and more severe than ever, and storms don’t break them—they’re more inclined to rip branches straight off dead trees, or worse, start bushfires with lightning strikes. Consequently, Wendy’s showers became progressively shorter and shorter. She’d flick a tap and “sorry, forgot something”, to spring me.
I turn covers down or tidy the wardrobe whenever she’s in the bathroom. A wife seldom starts an argument while her husband’s doing housework. Wendy’s throttled back to part-time work now. We can afford it. She soaks in a bath, humming, so I plan our daily income injection, checking foreign exchange rates, obscure racing carnivals and the stock market, making mental notes that I scribble down as the day progresses.
TODAY, MONDAY MORNING, I have one hand on the clock-radio; the other, thumbing the Internet on my phone, banned from yet another gambling website, when I see it.
This envelope has “Phil” written in Wendy’s delicate handwriting. Unsealed, on my nightstand. Unusually, hers is clear; there’s always a couple of half-finished books, perfectly aligned and waiting . . .
Wait, her pillow is missing. A cracked and broken clock-radio on the floor, and her favourite lamp is gone. Clutter strewn around . . .
A “Dear John” letter—though of course, directed at Phil. What the f . . . ? Is Wendy mentally drafting the letter right now, soaking in the bath?
Hell’s Bells. I strain for the envelope as far as I can reach, remaining in physical contact with the clock-radio. I stretch, fumbling, when . . . bang. It hits the wooden floorboards with a crack of breaking plastic, a puff of electrical smoke, that awful acrid metallic smell.
Suddenly, months after I should’ve done something, I understand.
My final chance to save my marriage, with the disadvantage of no way of gauging whether I’m on the right track. I phone in sick, recollecting the things I’ve done right these last few months. Today I’ll rekindle my wife’s love for me with small extravagances. I’ll bake her that cake.
I can’t explain or prove how I know the outcome of one of this evening’s horse races, and why I’d risk our life savings. With the clock-radio smouldering in pieces at my feet, it was obvious what time it is.
Time to come clean. Wendy deserves better from me. There’s still time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: SEVERAL of Ian’s stories have been published in Eclectic E-zine and Celapene Press’ “Short and Twisted” anthologies. He is part of “Scribes Divided”, contributing to their second anthology, which ranked at number one in several Amazon categories upon its 2019 release. His story “Big C” won the “Needle in the Hay” major competition of 2015, and a revised version placed third in the 2016 “Write Around the Murray” writing competition.
He has been shortlisted in The Alan Marshall short story award, among others.
Ian has written screenplays for Tropfest, with one being considered by Logie Winner Lex Marinos. Two novel manuscripts, “No Man’s Land” and “Don’t You Know Who I Am?” are complete.
His day job in IT involves the creation of business reports, solution design and other technical documents, distributed to all levels within very large organisations.
Find him at www.ianharrison.id.au
Bearing Fruit by Shannon Kelly
THE LAND WAS BLEAK. Empty. But it spoke to Zo in a whisper; in the way the wind ran through the dust at her feet and the sun painted a mirage on the horizon.
She sniffed at traces of sweat that lingered in the air. Her eyes followed footsteps of aurochs to where their tracks were washed away by a flood no more than two days ago. Ahead, where her shadow stretched to the east, the plain was flat, the next mountains over a day’s journey ahead, and no dark spots moved to show where food might be.
The others would worry, say that she had led them the wrong direction. But Zo would have to show them strength; wouldn’t show fear. Because she was a eucalypt, and eucalypts didn’t show fear.
“Feel it, my granddaughter,” her nan had told her. “Feel the fear as it ripples down your back, raises the hairs on your arms. Feel your heartbeat in your chest. But don’t let it touch your face. Look around. See the people who will one day follow you. They look to you for strength. It is not just your back that must be strong from now on.”
“How long must I lead, Nan?” she’d asked, on the day she’d chosen her offering, declaring herself a eucalypt-bearer for her tribe, an adult to the world.
“Hard to say,” Nan said cryptically. “Until the day there is smoke in the sky. The day the ground rumbles and the sun turns red. Then, stories say, we can rest.”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“No, but my great-great-great”—she ticked greats off her fingers before shaking out her hands—“great-whatever-grandfather, in the days before the land stopped growing and everything turned to dust, told stories of fields of gold and green, forests so deep you could get lost in them—a land of life renewed again and again by the fires from beneath the earth; renewed season after season by the fires above it. I doubt I’ll ever see it. But maybe you will.”
That had been Nan—a eucalypt to the day she’d died, and her offering had been planted atop her grave. Zo’s father had been a eucalypt too, until he’d died beneath a tusktooth’s hooves. Now Zo was a eucalypt, because she was a leader. Because somebody had to pretend to be strong so that others could pretend to feel safe.
Tonight, the smell on the winds was of the sky. Zo closed her eyes against the emptiness before her, breathed in the air, let the land speak to her. Rain, it said. There will be rain to the north.
The aurochs would also read that in the land.
Zo turned to where she had set down her backpack, pressed her hand against the gumtree that grew from within it. Her tree’s leaves were wilted, yellowing slightly and tilting to the east, but she could feel the sap pulsing through it—the lifeblood of her offering. The hope of the future.
She swung the tree onto her back and carefully made her way down an outcropping into the chasm where the rest of her tribe waited.
“Hey Zo!” Calli shouted, spotting her coming.
Zo smiled at her friend and looked at the thirty others who sat in the shade. They were a varied tribe—an ethos that extended beyond the different kinds of plants they bore on their backs, and to the hair colours and skin shades of their ancestors. Short, tall, lanky; muscled like Zo; long-limbed like Calli; they were a tribe Zo was proud to call her own.
As Zo reached the base of the chasm, Calli offered her half of a passion fruit. “Figured it was better to crack these out now, huh?” she said, a grin splitting right across her face. “Have a go anyway. I think these are sweeter than last season’s.”
“No sweeter than their bearer,” Zo said, returning the grin, while carefully scooping out a few of the golden seeds. She sucked on them, crunching them in her teeth to let their energy fill her body. They were s
weeter. The extra rain these last few weeks had really made the offering flourish. Zo knelt down and buried the last two seeds a thumb’s width into the damp dust beneath her feet. It was said nothing would grow in the earth, but who really knew? Maybe, just one time, something would flourish.
“Thanks, Calli,” Zo said, passing the husk of her fruit back. She raised her voice to the others. “Rain’s coming from the north. We’ve lost the tracks, but the aurochs’ll be journeying there for the water. Maybe some saltbush or algae up there too. Just a guess, but you’re welcome to stay here instead.”
Scattered laughter ran through the tribe at the old joke. Zo couldn’t claim all the credit, of course. It was easy to smile after eating half a fruit on an empty stomach.
Those who were sitting pushed themselves to their feet. The twins, both named Vin, began to collect the lilly-pillies that had fallen from their backs while they waited. A flame-pea bearer named Charles readied his umbrella—all this rain hadn’t helped his offering and he’d taken to covering it when the clouds opened up. A squat old man named Georgiou who’d joined them last summer took two tries to heave himself and his bird’s nest fern to his feet. He’d been bearing that one his whole life, he said. And it had been his mother’s before that. It showed—it was big enough that the children stuck close to him for shade on the hottest days.
Zo smelled Sahid coming before she heard him. The odour of the lavender he carried tickled her nose. She sighed, then composed herself and turned to face him. “Yes, Sahid?”
His black-brown eyes spoke a challenge. “You lost the trail then?”
“Yes,” Zo said.
“I said you would lose it. That we should track north to begin with. Find the river and see if it has washed any silt downstream.”
“And I told you there was no silt in the rivers this far east. We’re not having this—”
“All ready to go, Zo,” Calli jumped in. She gave Sahid a furrowed brow that Zo wasn’t meant to see, but definitely was meant to see.
“Thanks, Calli,” Zo said. “Sahid, can we talk about this another time?” Hopefully never.
“Whatever,” he said, returning to where his friends gathered. Zo breathed easier with him gone.
“You know, keep going like that and he’s going to leave at the next gathering,” Calli said.
Zo sighed, because as much as she disliked Sahid, his lavender was useful for dressing wounds and treating period cramps. His offering would be missed, if not himself. “I’ll talk to him. What? I will.”
“You only have to deal with him ‘until the sun goes red and smoke fills the sky,’” Calli mocked.
“So basically forever?” Zo said, putting a wry twist to her mouth. She broke into laughter and Calli joined. “I’ll talk to him. I promise.”
“He’s got a point though,” Calli said, holding her arms up. “Hey, he does. Why didn’t we go north? There’s nothing in the east.”
Zo couldn’t answer that. Not the last time Calli had asked, not this time either. Not days later, when they tracked the aurochs to a saltmarsh and hunted enough to eat for days. Not when Zo moved them east again before they could dry enough jerky to last for weeks. How could she tell Calli that something called her there? Always east. How her gumtree’s leaves, when given the time to rest, would curl to point towards the rising sun. How the winds that blew dust through the hairs on her legs whispered through those same leaves, East, East, East. How she had lost belief that there was a better life for any of them out there and maybe they should lie down and die, to fertilise their offerings with their bodies and hope it was enough to restore the world to what it had been long ago.
They continued east and a month later Zo returned from scouting to sense discontent in the air. Sahid had not left at the last gathering of tribes. She had talked sense into him, and it had been for the worse. He’d rallied support with others in the tribe, and she’d had no reason to stop him. So it came as no surprise when he finally challenged her for leadership.
“Nothing south or north here,” she said, as the moon lit up the blue horizon. “But if we head east a bit, I reckon there’ll be some bounders hiding in those rocks. Just a guess, but you’re welcome to stay here instead.” Even before she finished the joke, she knew it would bring no laughs. She could see their hard-set jaws.
“East again?” Sahid asked. “North of here there’s fishing to be had in the rivers. I know these lands. My grandad fished them when he was a boy. We should go north. Eat something other than dried auroch for a change.” There were mutters of agreement.
“The river is dried up,” Zo said. She’d smelled it on the air, seen it in how the birds high above migrated. But how could she explain what had been taught to her by experience and small lessons that took her nan’s whole life to share?
“Says you,” Vin said. “We’re with Sahid. Let’s go north to fish.”
A chorus of agreement followed. Zo tried not to let it show how much that pierced her heart. She looked at Calli for help. Her friend just mouthed, You’re the boss. Zo drew in a hiss of breath. Readied herself to agree with Sahid, to take them north. Wasn’t that best for the whole tribe? If she gave in now, she was all but saying he was the leader, but wasn’t that what she wanted? To rest—stop pretending at strength and let somebody else take charge?
A breeze rippled through the collective, her tribe waiting for an answer. The leaves and branches and flowers that made up her family’s life swayed in the night. The wind brought sweet smells of wattle and lemon, lilly-pilly, lavender and bottlebrush. And it brought the ever-present whisper, East, East, East.
“I . . . can’t,” Zo said to them. “Follow Sahid if you must. But tomorrow I go east.”
There were gasps. Whispers. What was she doing? Couldn’t she see north was the way? You just didn’t split a tribe. What would they do without her gumtree; without its wood and oils?
“Are you sure?” Calli asked quietly.
Zo nodded. “I can’t explain it. But . . . I need to keep going.”
“Well, that’s always been good enough for me. I’ll be going with you.”
Zo smiled, feeling a warm rush of gratitude for her friend. For everything Calli was giving up.
In the morning, their tribe went north and they went east.
They journeyed across plains, through weathered rocks where a family of bounders scattered away from them. They crossed vast cracked mudflats, through the petrified remains of stumps and ancient rusted fences and fields of bones. Until their water began to run dry and Calli’s passion fruits no longer grew sweet.
Then, one morning, when hope had faded and they had begun to plan for the end, they woke to a rumbling that rattled the dust from their skins and sent Calli’s last remaining passion fruits scattering to the ground.
“What is it?” Calli asked, clutching onto Zo out of fear.
Zo sniffed, smelled the acidic char on the air. Saw the red sun rising ahead of them and felt the rumble of volcanic eruptions underfoot. Noticed tiny sproutings of green clinging to the ground around them. Renewal from the fires, above and below. She swallowed a dry throat. She could pretend to be strong one last time. “It’s everything we were looking for. We found it. Life.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: SHANNON Kelly is a Sydney-based writer, editor and board game designer. He can be found at foxtalegames.com
Shift by Sasha Hanton
CASSIE SHOULD HAVE been back by now. The village was a way off, but it shouldn’t be taking her this long to get home. Millie’s fingers nervously drummed out a beat on the windowsill. A veil of white and darkness loomed outside the window.
“She’s not back yet.” With each second that ticked by on the clock uncertainty crawled its way up Millie’s spine.
“What do you propose we do about it?” Nathaniel leaned back in the recliner, arching an eyebrow at his youngest sister.
“Take the sled, find her and bring her home.”
He chuckled at her answer. “Are you crazy? It’s alread
y dark out, a snowstorm is due to hit soon, and all the dogs we have on hand at the moment are still in training. None of them are lead material.”
A resounding thunk rung out, Millie’s hand thrummed with pain as she felt the smooth oak beneath her palm.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
“Are you crazy? Did you not listen to a word—” Nathaniel’s voice was drowned out by the howling of the wind, an icy chill sweeping into the cabin.
“Coward.” Millie grumbled under her breath as she trudged through the snow to the gear room. “Useless, stupid, coward.”
A half-dozen sets of ears pricked up as Millie wrenched open the gear house. Sharp eyes traced her movements as she stomped across the floors and yanked equipment off the shelves.
“All right dogs, let’s go,” she shouted over her shoulder as she pulled the sled out into the snow.
Three heads tilted sideways at her, and three others rose from the floor with rousing yips.
“This isn’t a drill. Buck, Mini, Tara, get your butts up off the ground. Snow, Thor, Nina, quit that yapping and let’s get lined up.”
It took time, more time than Millie would have liked, to harness each sledder. Mini and Nina with their rustic red coats and white tipped tails stood out at the front. Snow with her pure white and Tara with that deep black fur were both almost swallowed up by the scenery. Nearly dwarfing the other dogs, Thor and Buck pulled up the rear, their plumed tails wagging as they waited for Millie’s orders.
“Ok, let’s go!” She had to shout to be heard over the whipping winds but as soon as their ears picked up the sound, they were off.
It was too dark. Millie could barely see Mini and Nina at the front of the sled. All sound seemed to be swallowed in the silence of the night.
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