The first thing in the morning text message was a punch in the guts. “Sorry, Colin. I love you, but we’re on different journeys. Let’s stay friends.” I blinked twice to clear my eyes and was about to respond, “Are you serious?” but threw the phone against the bedroom wall instead.
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Episode 91 (18 April 2024): Less than forty-eight hours after receiving her online order, Third Age Cybertronics delivered Jack to Daisy, a sprightly centenarian who purchased the Advanced Companion Droid to help her with household chores and carry her bags when travelling.
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My first attempt at the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction writing challenge was in April 2020. Since then, I’ve submitted entries to every challenge except two when I was away from home on holiday. I wrote my forty-third (official and unofficial) Furious Fiction this month, my fifth April story.
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I wrote The Light Above for the March 2024 Furious Fiction, the Australian Writers’ Centre’s 500-word flash fiction challenge. The brief for March was that each story had to include a character who revisits something, the same colour in its first and last sentence, and the words CAMP, FAST and SPARK.
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Episode 90 (1 April 2024): My first “published” writing was an Enid Blyton-Famous Five-style adventure story, Sand Island, in 1972. I wrote the story and illustrated it with coloured Texta markers. My aunt, the only one in our family with a typewriter, typed up the manuscript. And my father helped bind and cover the book. I was ten.
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Episode 89 (14 March 2024): Eighteen-year-old Hugo glanced up at the train station clock. It seemed time had stood still, with the minute hand barely moved since he’d last checked. He confirmed the time on his watch and then looked at the departure board, breathing a sigh of relief. His train was running on schedule.
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The sign at the front desk of the restaurant was emphatic: “WAIT TO BE SEATED.” No “Please” or “Thank you”. Bernie and his date, Sally, glanced at each other in awkward silence. “YES,” a gruff voice boomed from a speaker on the desk, “DO YOU HAVE A BOOKING?” Bernie stared into the webcam taped to the speaker.
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I once wrote a short story titled The Lost Hour that opens: “You know what it’s like when you lose something. It’s always in the last place you look. But how do you find a lost hour? It’s not like it can slip down the back of a sofa like coins or keys!” I’ve lost a few things but never imagined losing a story!
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Episode 88 (29 February 2024): While sorting through storage boxes at home, I found an old notebook belonging to my son. It wasn’t a school exercise book but something he’d jotted and doodled in as a twelve-year-old. Among its random pages was a short story he’d written in 2014 about a father who doesn’t have “great ideas”.
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The chemical reaction when I pour the jug of milk onto my cereal sparks a memory: “Snap, crackle, pop!” Growing up, Mum bought us bland wheat cereals for breakfast. “You need the fibre,” she’d say, cutting short complaints and requests from my sisters and me for more popular brands.
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Episode 87 (15 February 2024): If you ask me, the Moon is the best object in the night sky. And you don’t need an expensive telescope to observe it. A pair of binoculars does the trick. I’m looking at the Moon now, leaning against a wall to steady my hands, and it’s a beautiful sight. No wonder it inspires poets and lovers.
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On Monday, 11 December 2023, my twenty-one-year-old son and I set off in his van on a 10-day, 4600-kilometre dad-and-son road trip from Sydney to Margaret River. We had planned the trip for over six months to spend Xmas/New Year with our WA family. And yet, I only had a vague idea of our route.
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By definition, brevity is the key to good microfiction. There is no time for plot and character development, so every word must count. ~ Robert Fairhead
I hope readers enjoy the short story journeys in Twelve More Furious Months and make it home in time for dinner. ~ Robert Fairhead
I look forward to the Writer's Centre's monthly Furious Fiction competitions because I've become addicted to the escapism of writing short stories! ~ Robert Fairhead
This slim book is hard to put down. And the only regret we may feel after reading it is that we reached the end too quickly! ~ Denise O'Hagan
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou
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