Shortlisted and longlisted entries to the Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction competition

Which One Am I Again? – March 2024

https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/furious-fiction-april-2024-story-showcase

• Criteria:
  • Your story’s setting is a BED. (More details below.)
  • Your story’s first sentence must have no more than three words.
  • Your story must include the words SHAPE, ENTER and QUESTION. (Longer words are okay if original spelling is retained.) 

I dread sleep. I didn’t used to, but things change. I used to be terminally single. I used to go to bed early and sleep in late. I used to luxuriate in line-dried sheets that smelled like sun and my dachshund. 
Now, though. Now. Though. Each night, I lie there, your ‘you’ scent in my nostrils. I breathe carefully, hoping if you’re awake you’ll think I’m asleep. And I worry.
Sometimes it’s the shape of you, heaving over in the dark like a breaching orca, that triggers it. I’ll wake up outside the bedroom, wide-eyed and terrified. 
I’ll go back in. ‘I did it again?’
You’ll shrug. Why do you never answer my question? Explain what I was scared of? What you’re scared of? Terror will leak from your pores, clouding your sleep-narrowed eyes. Still, you’re silent.
Sometimes I’ll wake up mid-scream in bed, jangling with unknown trauma.
You’ll pin my flailing arms to the bed. ‘Stop! There’s no one here. Just me.’
Just you. Before it was just you, it was just me. I never woke myself up screaming. Never punched things. When I take a swing at you, you’re an unknown intruder. Fear pumps in me like a firehose, and if you’re lucky, I wake up quickly. I read once about a guy who sleep-murdered his wife; he wasn’t even convicted. I’m terrified that one day this will be me – the woman who hurts you because I don’t know and can’t stop. 
So, I lie awake. Maybe tonight I’ll do something funny. One time I asked ‘Which one are you again?’ as though there was a parade of men through my bedroom most nights. One night I told you in mind-numbing detail how to use software that you *already knew how to use*.
I’m scared of falling asleep on the train too. What might I announce, or do, to the other commuters? I sit bolt upright the whole journey, every day, just in case. 
This afternoon, you proposed to me. After just four months of dating. I said yes. How mad is that? Just four months.
I must have drifted off, because suddenly I’m huddled by the front door – which you’ve learned to lock with a key – yanking at the handle. And here you are, coming out of the bedroom. 
‘Trying to run away, babe?’
And I laugh, crazily. HAHAHA. ‘Of course not.’
But it niggles. Is my brain bravely waving a red flag at me?
‘Come back to bed,’ you say.
I enter the bedroom. I watch you settle down in the bed, then toss violently onto your other side. I turn, peering out into the hallway and the door beyond. My thumb works at the junk-shop placeholder ring on my finger. 
Then I return to bed. I lie on my back. I know sleep will come eventually. It must, just as embarrassment will come in the morning as I wait to hear what I have said and done.

Moving Earth – March 2024

Furious Fiction: March 2024 Story Showcase

• Criteria:
  • Your story must include a character who revisits something.
  • Your story must include the same colour in your first and last sentence.
  • Your story must include the words CAMP, FAST and SPARK. (Longer words are okay if original spelling is retained.) 

It’s the green copper of the smaller front dome, mangled on the ground, that makes Lottie’s breakfast rise. She swallows, trying to hide her distress from her parents. They’ve lived through the earthquake, the aftermath. Her over-reaction to a collapsed cathedral they only went to for her orchestra concerts will seem indulgent.
‘Wait till you see the cathedral in the Square,’ her dad says. ‘Munted.’
Her parents had spent the drive from the airport pointing out every damaged church steeple. Which is most of them.
‘See that one? That’s where you went to Girl Guides.’
‘This one, they’re saying they can’t save it.’
Point, point, point, as they bump over potholes, detour around closed streets. Lottie wants to tell them they don’t need to point out the devastation; she can see it.
‘Oh, they’ve torn that one down. Look.’
Then she realises. The narration isn’t disaster porn; it’s therapy. And when they get to the Catholic cathedral, she has to ask her dad to pull over.
The day of the earthquake, people in her Melbourne office who knew she was from Christchurch started messaging. Google told her there’d been a massive earthquake. She called her dad.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Munted … it’s all … munted. It’s … oh my god.’ The phone cut out.
She took the rest of the day off to watch the tele, fractured versions of the places of her childhood flying at her. Here, where she learnt to use chopsticks. There, where she had choir.
The phones were out, and the aftershocks kept rolling. She sobbed for her city, but then in the days following, it became abstract. Her parents’ suspended life – cooking on a camp stove, toileting in a hastily-dug garden long-drop, walking an hour to collect water from a natural spring – was a theory, something happening away from Lottie.
Now, it’s happening right here, at the cathedral. The loss. The home town that she hadn’t let herself grieve for, not after that first day, drags her heart to her feet.
‘It’s not all bad,’ her dad says. ‘This is just the Catholic one. They’ll rebuild the real one in town.’
Lottie sniffs, moving to the side to look along the cathedral’s length.
‘How is it that the entire front of the building fell off, but there’s still glass in the windows up there?’ she asks, pointing to the main dome, which is somehow still up. Its glass sparkles in the winter sun, daring the earth to move again.
‘That’s the thing,’ her mother says. ‘There’s no rhyme or reason to what survived. You go to visit somewhere and it’s just … gone.’
Her dad shakes his head. ‘The whole city’s a grief-stricken junkyard.’
Lottie turns away, her back to the wreckage.
‘Oh, but look,’ her mum says, pointing. ‘It’s coming into daffodil season, at least.’
They follow her finger to the dirt under the trees that edge the cathedral complex. Green shoots, inevitable as breathing, are moving up through the earth.

How the Sausage Gets Made – January 2024

https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/furious-fiction-january-2024-story-showcase

• Criteria:
  • Your story must take place on a character’s FIRST DAY OF A NEW JOB.
  • Your story must include something being stolen.
  • Your story must include the words TRIP, TRIANGLE and TSUNAMI.

Jen waits, a nervous voyeur, in the Rough Planet reception. The arriving staff are buzzing about the tsunami that hit New Zealand on Saturday, and Jen’s stomach twinkles. She’s finally here, seeing how the sausage – her travel guidebook idol – is made. 
‘Jennifer?’
Jen looks over to the receptionist.
‘Time to start your journey.’
Jen snorts before realising they’re serious.
‘Oh, uh, great. Ta.’
She’s walked to a meeting room where two women are seated. 
‘You’re Jennifer,’ one of them says. 
‘Yes!’
‘What a day to start,’ the other woman says. ‘I’m Jodie. That’s Mira.’
‘Why’s it … um … what’s wrong with today?’
Jodie rolls her eyes. ‘The tsunami?’
‘I know about that. But—’
‘You’ll see,’ Jodie says darkly.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Mira says, then turns to Jodie. ‘Tell her it’s not that bad.’
‘It’s very bad,’ Jodie says. ‘Book-to-printer’s on Friday, and there’s a whole chapter talking about a place that, pretty much, doesn’t exist anymore.’
Jen’s bowel thumps, but she smiles. 
‘Well, it’s not my first publishing crisis,’ she says. They look blank. ‘I sent an astronomy textbook to print, then they decided Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore. We had to print special stickers.’ She tries to laugh then blushes. ‘Um, so, let’s add a disclaimer box with a website link for updates? And recovery fundraising info? Then when it’s safe we get an author on the ground to start feeding updates?’
‘We’re broke,’ Jodie says. ‘We can’t pay an author to sit around waiting for whatever’s next.’
More people arrive, the one man in the group sitting down heavily at the head of the table and sighing.
‘Come on, shut up,’ he says loudly, his eyebrows strung high like they’re caught by fish hooks. He taps his pen on the table then stops as the plastic casing cracks. ‘Damn,’ he mutters.
Mira silently passes him her pen. 
‘Okay, blah blah, welcome Jennifer, we’ll do that stuff later,’ the man says. ‘Let’s talk tsunamis.’
Another woman laughs. ‘How about doing it like when we deleted our only Bermuda Triangle content? Just delete the chapter and pretend it never existed?’
‘That was a joke, Kath. People actually died in this?’
‘Sorry, just trying to … never mind.’
Jodie puts up her hand. ‘Let’s throw in a disclaimer and send people to the website for the latest. Promote a recovery fundraiser. Hire an author to post updates as things change.’
THIEF. Jen widens her eyes at Mira. Mira shrugs.
‘Love it,’ the man says.
‘I can go on a trip there,’ Jodie continues. ‘Capture the vibe on film?’
He shakes his head. ‘No money.’
Jodie smiles. ‘I know a guy. My boyfriend? He’s an influencer? We’ll do it for free.’
‘Love it.’ The man sits back. ‘Great. Okay, next. I’ve got a revised list of swear words we’re allowed to print.’
Jen swallows as the others start arguing over derivations of the F word. She may never use a Rough Planet book again. Or eat sausages.

Ooh! – December 2023

https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/furious-fiction-december-2023-story-showcase

• Criteria:
  • Your story must take place at either an AIRPORT or TRAIN STATION.
  • Your story must feature an awkward hug. (You don’t need to use those words, but the awkwardness should be clear!)
  • Your story must include the words EIGHTEEN, EGG and ELEPHANT.

‘Ness?’ a voice says as a hand touches Vanessa’s back.
She stands abruptly. ‘Hi, Brianna.’ She’d steered clear of the departure gate, opting instead for the seclusion of the dingy airport pub.
‘Ooh, I’m so happy to meet you, like, for reals.’
Brianna holds out her arms and Vanessa realises with a cowbell-clonk of resignation that Brianna is a hugger. Vanessa bends at the hips, reaching down to get her arm around Brianna, then delivers a perfect colleagues-slash-strangers embrace. Brianna flings both arms around Vanessa, pulling her close and kissing her cheek. Vanessa’s bar stool wedges between them like a mother determined to split up her son and his lover.
‘Um, nice to meet you,’ Vanessa says into Brianna’s hair. She pats Brianna’s back again then shrinks her body back like an airbridge accordioning away from a plane. 
‘Ooh, I’m not done yet!’ Brianna tightens her arms, pulling Vanessa back in. ‘You’re so tall, not like on Zoom.’
What can Vanessa possibly say to that? Ooh, you’re so short?
‘Um, yeah, nice to meet you,’ she repeats like a dimwit, then, tipping past the point of her endurance for having a stranger’s breasts pushed against her own, she again tries to step back. This time, Brianna releases her.
‘Ooh, I’m going to have to get some more of that later. We’ve missed out on, like, two years of hugs.’
The first annual-planning summit since the pandemic started could have been so useful, but now all Vanessa can see is three days of ducking and diving around Brianna’s enthusiasm for hugs. She sits down, trying not to resent that she can’t keep reading her book. At least she can read on the plane; they’ll be boarding in an hour.
‘Ooh, they really make you climb up onto these things, don’t they?’ Brianna says, settling heavily onto the bar stool next to Vanessa’s. ‘Designed for giraffes, not baby elephants.’
Everything Brianna says is accompanied by a nervous giggle. Vanessa knows that already from their team meetings, of course, but somehow the move from virtual to in-person has stripped Vanessa of her ability to filter out such tics.
Brianna grabs up a menu. ‘Ooh, the caesar salad looks good. I’ll just need to ask for no egg, bacon or mayo. Ooh, and no parmesan.’
‘Oh?’
Brianna gestures to the woman working the bar that she is ready to order then turns back to Vanessa. ‘I’m trying to be vegan. Did I not tell you that before?’
Vanessa shakes her head. It might be the one thing left that she doesn’t know about Brianna.
The woman comes and takes their orders. The devil in Vanessa requires her to order the largest steak on the menu. Rare. 
‘Ooh, where are you on the plane?’ Brianna asks.
Vanessa gets out her boarding pass. ‘Row eighteen. Eighteen A.’
‘Ooh, I’m eighteen B.’
‘Fantastic,’ Vanessa says.
Brianna claps her hands together. ‘Ooh, isn’t it? This is just perfect.’
‘Just perfect.’

Rolled – April 2023

https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/furious-fiction-april-2023-story-showcase

• Criteria:
  • Each story had to include something that CHANGES COLOUR.
  • Each story had to include the words ACCEPT, POINT, RIDDLE, INKLING and LABEL.
  • APRIL FOCUS: Each story had to have an ENGAGING OPENING SENTENCE – one that will make your reader want to read on.

With all the confidence of a politician buying the silence of their potential whistleblowers, Margie strode into the William Fox Memorial Hall carrying a golden sponge roll, its whipped cream and vibrant raspberry jam stuffing glistening out the ends.
Margie’s sponges – both roll and traditional – were widely known in Foxham, not just for their deliciousness, but for the underhanded reasons for which they were made.
And today, the Foxham branch of the New Zealand Federation of Women’s Institutes – labelled Finz-fwee by its members – were voting for the role of chair, having decided that adding a whiff of democracy to their proceedings might help demonstrate the seriousness of their work. Margie, she liked people to know, had operated as chair for twenty-three years, eleven months, sixteen days, and … coming up three hours. 
‘Kay, plates please,’ Margie ordered Kay as she strode into the kitchen. Kay looked desperately over at Kura. Kay was in charge (an unelected role) of the agenda, not the catering. Kura stepped into the kitchen, colliding with Margie’s large bosom as it, along with Margie, exited. 
‘Oh! It’s lucky I wasn’t carrying something precious,’ Margie said pointedly.
‘Margie, it’s 7.05,’ Kay said, agitated.
‘Oh Kay, stop fussing. We’ll start in a minute!’ Margie said brusquely. ‘Phyllis, you’re here!’ she continued, holding her arms open to Foxham’s mayor’s latest wife. ‘Would you like a slice of sponge roll? World famous in Foxham,’ she winked. 
Phyllis smiled uncertainly then sort of patted Margie’s upper arms. ‘I can’t accept your kind offer, thank you Maggie. Doctor’s orders!’
The wrong name sat in the room like a fart on a public bus.
Rona stepped forward. ‘Phyllis, I know just what you’re going through. Margie’s sponges should come with a health warning!’ She smiled – she hoped winningly – and Margie glared at her.
And then they all watched as the inkling of a thought hit Margie’s face: the riddle of the chair challenger was solved. Rona, who always came empty-handed – and sometimes empty-minded, depending on who you asked. 
‘Alright then, let’s vote.’ Margie clapped her hands on ‘vote’. ‘Hands up who wants someone with experience.’
‘Wait!’ Kay said. ‘I made voting packs!’ She got out a stack of little cellophane bags, each with a square of paper and a pencil in it. Kura started handing them out. 
‘Surely we don’t need – ‘ Margie started, but again Rona stepped in.
‘Very good, Kay. That way we can all vote in private.’
‘I made a box to put them in too,’ Kay said, shy now that everyone was looking at her. 
And so it was on that evening, just before the summer holidays, that Rona became – by just one vote more than Margie – chair of Finz-fwee. And so it also was that, in their excitement at the change, the group forgot about the sponge roll in the kitchen until late January, when Rona, as chair, was asked to fund fumigation, the hall having been overrun weeks ago with vermin, attracted by the greenish-grey, furry sponge roll.

Half-Baked – March 2023

https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/furious-fiction-march-2023-showcase

• Criteria:
  • Each story had to include a CHAIR of some sort.
  • Each story had to include the words ALBUM,  BRIGHT and CLICK.
  • Each story had to include a character who had to make a CHOICE between two things.

The Foxham branch of the New Zealand Federation of Women’s Institutes – which they called Finz-fwee – was meeting to plan their bake sale. 
Rona was the chair, having beaten out Margie by one vote and sending Margie on an unsatiated quest to figure out who in her faction had switched sides. 
Kay, her twining fingers conveying her level of distress at their late start, murmured, “Get it going,” to Rona.
Rona blinked several times, quickly, then clapped once. “Excuse me? Can we … um … ladies?”
The volume seemed to increase. Margie raised an eyebrow at Rona – just the barest twitch – then announced loudly, “Look, Rona’s finally ready. Pipe down!”
“Yes, if you could all take a seat, we’ll go through Kay’s agenda.”
Only Kura, who was sitting down next to Kay, heard the quiet “It’s our agenda”. She reached over and patted Kay’s clasped pomegranate-coloured hands gently.
“Our first item is to approve the minutes from the last meeting,” Rona said. “Do we have a motion?” She paused as all the women raised their hands. “Like I said last time, only one motion is needed. Kura, perhaps you could always do it, then I’ll always second, to keep it simple.” 
Margie expelled a delicate snort. “Simple’s right.”
“Now. Our fundraiser celebrating the sesquicentennial of our town’s namesake’s final stint as premier.” 
Margie raised her hand.
“Yes, Margie?” 
“I think we should find a whizz-bang name for it.”
Rona frowned. “We’re just describing what it is.”
“The event name is actually further down the agenda,” Kay interjected. “Item two, subitem one is what we’re baking.”
Rona made a calming motion. “Who has the catalog of what we’ve previously made? We can’t repeat.” 
Kura pulled a heaving photo album out of her basket. “I’ve got it. But we’re still missing our entry for 2019 …”
Everyone looked over at Joy. “Club sandwiches don’t photograph nicely,” she said primly.
“They don’t sell nicely at bake sales either,” Margie said brusquely. “Now my granddaughter – the bright one – was saying we should set up a TwitFace event. We could show pictures from other years to entice people, then they click to tell us they’re coming, she said, so we know how much to make.”
Kura held the album protectively. “I don’t want to send the album to the internet. What if it goes missing in the post?”
Margie sighed.
Rona tapped her pen on the table in front of her. “As chair, I think we need to stay on track with Kay’s agenda.”
“As chair, maybe you should decide what we’re baking,” Margie snapped.
“Oh, um, well … Neenish tarts! No, Afghans! The biscuit. Not the people.” Rona blushed.
Kura put up her hand. “Motioned!” 
“No!” Rona said. “I changed my mind!”
“She changed her mind,” echoed Margie.
Kay put up her hand. “Actually, racist biscuits are well suited, given what William Fox did to the Māori.”
The room was silent. 
“As chair,” Rona said, “I don’t think we should have a racist bake sale.”
“Motioned.”
“Seconded.”

The Art – December 2022

https://www.writerscentre.com.au/blog/furious-fiction-december-2022-winner-and-shortlist

• Criteria:
  • Each story had to begin with a 12-word sentence.
  • Each story had to include the sale of a second-hand item
  • Each story had to include at least five (5) different words that end in the letters –ICE.

He certainly didn’t *seem* like a serial killer when she met him. Her feelings were clear, from their first messages to when he said “G’day”.
She’d contacted the auction house in Seddon via Facebook, firing off a cherry message asking his advice about a very interesting secondhand lamp. She liked to collect one-of-a-kind pieces – she called them arts – for her cottage in Renwick.
Kevin, the auction house owner, had replied suggesting a visit so she could see the piece. Her lower belly had flutter-thumped at the suggestion; his grinning face on the website made her heart rejoice. 
But then she Googled him. There was a surprisingly high number of results for a small-town auctioneer in Marlborough. 
“Oz bids farewell to murderer turned auctioneer”, the Blenheim Sun blared. 
The Marlborough Express, too, went for a pun: “Murderer auctioned off to Seddon”.
For some reason the discovery titillated her. Imagine at her next book club meeting talking of her fling with a real-life deported Kiwi-Australian murderer – and there was the flutter-thump again. Maybe she would be known as the woman who turned the villain into a purring softie, his humanising accomplice. 
On the appointed day, she left home in her Ford Ka far too early. As she crossed the Awatere, she lamented the loss of the original bridge, with the rail line over the one-way road. The thrill when a train was on the bridge with you! But history had lost out again to practicality.
The auction house was on SH1. She cruised past it first, then pulled around the side of the supermarket to wait, sipping green juice from her thermos and taking shallow panty breaths.
Thirty-seven minutes later, she pulled up in front of the public loos across from the auction house, then scuttled across the busy main road. 
“Hello, hello, hi!” she chirruped as she pushed through the door. 
A man – Kevin! her body trilled – emerged from the back office.
“G’day.”
“This is the art?” She gestured vaguely at the – she now saw – hideously oversized appliance standing next to the desk.
“Whaddaya reckon?”
“It’s, well, it’s um – I’m so interested to meet you. What a life! Full of spice!” 
His face collapsed. “I only talk about buying and selling stuff. That’s it, or you can bugger off.”
She felt a flush flare across her cheeks. “Kevin, please forgive me. I just … really feel like we connected. About the art.”
His eyes – such a lovely bright blue – held hers.
“Okay, um, I’ll buy it! How’s that. Or, how does this work? Do I place a bid or – ” 
The silence sat awkwardly between them like a fart in a yoga class.
She pulled out her purse.
“Look. I’m here, tryna live my life. In private, ya know. I done my time.”
“I know.”
His eyes held hers.
“I’ll take a fifty.”
She fished out two twenties and a ten, then picked up her art. “Well, I hope I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here.”
Flutter-thump, her body replied.