Category: Short Stories

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, Short Stories

Blue Ivy

[Author’s Note: Originally written April 2014]

It was a dream; that he was sure of. Although to be more accurate it was a memory of a dream, a vastly different thing. It was as vivid to him as last Tuesday. There was nothing particularly fascinating about last Tuesday but only in the sense that it was recent history. Some memories are like old photographs. The more you pull them out and look at them, the quicker they fade. Like an ex-lover’s face, clouded by time. Mouse-brown hair, that’s the first thing you remember. The hair, it’s always the most vivid part of his memory of people. Mouse brown, and at twelve that would be the best way to describe this girl. She was small and meek like a mouse; at least he recalls her being that. Her later bombastic personality would contrast that, but perhaps she had always been bombastic and he had misjudged her character. It was not impossible, he had pretty self-absorbed in his youth. He often used to think about his life like The Truman Show. He was Truman and everyone was in on the idea that his reality was crafted. He no longer thought that. How self-absorbed to think you are the only ‘real’ person. He tried to recall the girl some more. She was small, with teeth that seemed to be too big for her mouth. He liked that about her though. Perfection would be boring. She was interesting. All the women he had been interested in had that factor of interesting.

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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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