Category: Literary

Posted on in 2012, Earlier Writing, Literary, Sci-Fi, Short Stories

Reckoning

(Authors Note: This piece was originally written in 2012. It has been edited because there are some thematic issues I have with the text looking back. Part 1 remains largely intact as it wasn’t too awful, looking back. Part 2 required some severe editing. The piece was originally written in my Year 12 Literature class. It was an attempt to ape the novel ‘Atonement’ in its style and plot elements. Brownie points if you can spot the other literary references)

Part I

Perhaps he should not have come at all. Something about this meeting felt incredibly forced. She had sent him a message. Clemens St, Tuesday, 7pm. In her usual fashion, she was infuriatingly brief. Did she mean he was to wait outside on Clemens? It was a cold New London night and he hadn’t had the forethought to bring his jacket. No, she definitely meant the café. It was their place. The café was irrefutable a fact in their relationship as the war, and if there was one thing Milton know about her it’s that she was as sentimental as she was fanciful.

April turned into Clemens St, her brand-new heels clicking along the pavement and digging into her heel. She had half a mind to take them off but she persisted. She couldn’t appear weak in front of Milton. It had been five years; no contact between them. True, the war had not made things easy. Upon seeing her again, he would probably wring her throat. He was the type. The man had a violent streak, and his years in the army were unlikely to have satiated his bloodlust. April was drawn out of her thoughts by the realisation that she was supposed to be looking for Milton. She looked around. Clemens St was no longer the bustling street of eateries it had once been. All along the street there used to be little cafes with idyllic, outdoor dining areas. Half the shops were now closed, the other half were little more than rubble. The German had bombed New London, and Clemens St had suffered for it. Then she saw it, the humble little café they had visited years ago. By some stroke of luck, it still stood. Open, waiting for her entrance. Back when they were on friendlier terms Milton had stared bewildered at the French name of the place. Boire, she had told him, It means to drink. Of course, the word on his boorish tongue, he had mispronounced it. She had laughed. What had made her laugh in those days now made her wrinkle her nose in displeasure. Indeed, there seemed to be little to laugh at these days.

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Posted on in 2015, Earlier Writing, Literary, Sci-Fi, Short Stories

Monolith

[Author’s Note: Originally written October 2015]

As the sluggish train carried him into his work the skyline cast a dark shadow over the dreary landscape molded by the winter. It was an inescapable aspect of the city that was well known and oft parodied by its residents. The mood of the city became exactly like people outside it imagined it did in the winter months. Those travelling to work were covered in black, scurrying about in such a rat race that from above they must’ve looked like ants, ants tracking the same path every day. As he thought the train arrived painfully slowly into the city.

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Posted on in 2014, Earlier Writing, Literary, Short Stories

Mantis

[Author’s Note: Originally written August 2014]

He caught sight of her at the bar. She stood there, flame red hair and tall. Bright green eyes alight with excitement. She smiled at laughed with every man around her. Her teeth smiling bone white against the deep red of her lipstick. He looked at her, too beautiful for him but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. She whipped her head around the bar and caught his eyes. He felt that as he looked into her eyes the two shared a moment. With just her eyes and a tilt of her head she made a movement that he knew meant ‘come hither’. He moved to the bar. She watched him as he moved, carefully and resolutely. She silenced the man next to her with a move of her hand. She smiled sweetly at him as he approached. He took his place at the bar next to her.

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Posted on in 2015, Earlier Writing, Literary, Short Stories

Art is for Wankers

[Author’s Note: Originally written June 2015]

Leaning against the rail, his eyes wandered casually to an ANZ billboard above him. The slogan sat there. Live life the way you want it. One of those advertising statements that meant nothing because they can’t say what they want, Give us your money. It was good to know that three years of university had given him the ability to detect bullshit. He could’ve saved himself the money if he’d known that that would’ve been the only thing he’d retained from his course. Well, that and that small A4 piece of paper that hung in his apartment stating that he, Michael Alan Smith, had earned his Bachelor of Arts. In his head he responded with his major instantly. It was a reflex, sharpened for years when people at parties asked the same questions. He could quote the questions from memory.

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Posted on in 2014, Earlier Writing, Literary, Short Stories

The Girl at the Station

[Author’s Note: Originally written May 2014]

“Why here?” he asked the girl.

She was seventeen or eighteen by the looks of it. He was an age older compared to her. Sixty-five, not yet old but not so young either. The girl had applied a makeup that made her appear pale. Her blonde curls hung down, stopping around her chest. She wore a black hoodie and jeans to keep the cold out. It didn’t seem to help. The place she had elected to meet him was the grungy train station in the town he had grown up. A city close to the state capital and of decent size, but still not notable enough to be known to international visitors. The station looked as if it didn’t have enough cleaning staff to maintain a pristine setting. The ground of the platform was clean enough, rubbish that had been dropped in the last hour hadn’t been picked up but it was part of the regular mess of public spaces. The rusted corrugated iron roof, with what was probably a storied history, hung with cobwebs clinging to its darkest and driest corners of the inner roof. They stood on the bridge that hung over the main tracks leading to the nearby major city. The bridge was only crossed by people trying to get to the far platform, to board trains that planned to take a more rural trip. The nineteenth century looking clock hung over the station telling those who still bothered to read analogue time that it was about twelve past twelve. The station was almost empty except for people who had arrived early for the quarter to one train. The morning commute had subsided and the evening return was still hours off.

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Posted on in 2014, Earlier Writing, Literary, Short Stories

Pedestal

[Author’s Note: Originally written October 2014]

Lying on the bench she looked at him lazily, with half open eyes. Her shoulder length brown hair fell around her face, framing it. The light hit her hair, casting the right side of her face in a pale yellow light. Like a classical painting she lay there calm and passive. Her arms rested on her stomach, pressing gently on the black fabric of her shirt. Her shirt hung off her shoulders by thin straps. The fabric of the shirt tightly wrapped around her lithe frame. Her denim shorts stopped on her thighs, clinging tight to her skin. He imagined her, standing in front of the mirror admiring her excellent clothing choice for a night of partying, Her simple black bag, lay under her arms. He smiled at her. She smiled back. He didn’t know what to do then. He grabbed his camera and took a picture, preserving her smile forever. He looked at it, the focus of the photo was completely on her. The background of patrons became a blur. This was a perfect moment caught on film. The brown haired girl with the subtle smile. Like a tipsy modern Mona Lisa. She stretched out a finger and told him to come closer. He wasn’t used to being involved. He was a silent observer. That’s why he had the camera. He’d snap a picture of the band, or of a group of friends who ask him to. He documented. He was the camera, wholly and completely. Now he was being asked to join the world.

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