Factory

Rolled oats with a side of bacon for breakfast. Two cups of black coffee. Three cigarettes for company on the cold walk to work. H&J Steel: 50 days without an accident.

Sayonara, Earth

Author’s note: this short story is old, bizarre and … full of graphic content. I take no responsibility for what is about to transpire.   

My neighbour Dan knocks on my door at midnight and tells me he and a few others from the building are throwing an ‘End of the World’ party on the roof and that I should come along, too.

Moon River

He buys the screen print for $50 at IKEA. Splashed across the canvas is a sexy Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Originally published in Microfiction Monday Magazine on 1 May, 2016: https://microfictionmondaymagazine.com/

They were eating pizza on the couch when she asked him.

‘Do you still find me attractive?’ she said.

Kingdom of Animals

Originally published in Flash Fiction Magazine on 21 April, 2016: http://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2016/04/21/kingdom-of-animals/

My doctor believes a trip to the zoo will cheer me up. He buys me hotdogs and ice cream and encourages me to at least try to engage with the hundreds of animals on display.

The Happiest Place on Earth

Author’s note: although this essay isn’t strictly classified as ‘fiction’, it can definitely be read as a work of ‘creative non-fiction’. The rules of my blog were made to be broken.

There is a roll of footage stored away in the back of my mind. Some nights, when Melbourne is locked in the dead of winter and a southerly wind blows through my quiet street, rattling the windowpane above my bed, I close my eyes and play the film in my head. It is projected in bright colours, colours so bright they seem unnatural, unreal. Surreal.

Clarity

Ray was a month sober and smoking a cigarette at the kitchen table. He was leafing through an electronics catalogue Kristen had brought in with the mail. He circled a picture of a Crosley turntable that was currently on sale for $120, thinking it would look great in his study, tucked away between his bookcase and the decanters of bourbon and whiskey he no longer drank. He circled the picture again and imagined rocking back in his leather chair, hands laced behind his head, Sinatra’s gin-soaked voice crooning him to sleep.

Bible Salesman

A Bible salesman came to my door one rainy afternoon and asked if I was willing to talk about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for a few minutes. I told him I didn’t even know Bible salesmen still existed and he laughed, then sort of forced his way inside.

Fuck Everything and Run

A young Muslim man was killed on the westbound train this morning. 

Lost Dogs

Mark is at the tail end of a three-day bender when the dog hits his windscreen.