Louise

Celebrities? Get me out of here!

‘A’ list, ‘B’ list, reality TV list – who can keep up? I swear I can read a list of celebrities appearing somewhere or the other and not recognise a single name. Is this something to be proud of, or a reflection that our notion of celebrity has gotten out of hand? I’m confounded by the interest in every banal detail of celebrities’ lives and by their symbiotic need to feed the beast of media ubiquity.

So why am I writing about them?

The blame can be laid at the feet of the AWC’s Furious Fiction writing challenge for November, which required <500 words in 55 hours which:

had the first and last words an anagram of each other, and
included the phrase ‘there were eleven # in the #’ and
an interpretation of five emojis (a zipped mouth, a moon, a pair of scissors, a handshake and a cobweb).

Emojis? I don’t ‘do’ emojis, darling! And then, to quote the delightful Mrs Lovett, ‘you know me, bright ideas just pop into my head’.

I hope you like my petulant celebrities, appearing now in ‘A List‘:

“Three?” Theo Fitzclarence leaned towards the show’s host and shook his head. “I wish, Max. I’m afraid there were eleven people in the marriage.”

The studio audience gasped, laughed and clapped as the host’s jaw slow-dropped in his trademark facial move.

“You mean…?”

Fitzclarence raised the hands that had played the chords that had sold a million downloads for his alt rock band, Cake Scissors, and started counting them off.

“Me. Taniya. Her stylist. Her make-up artist. Hairdresser. Personal trainer. Personal assistant. Social media assistant. Two security guards to look after Cha-Cha and Biscuit…”

“The tea-cup Pomeranians?”

“More like tea-cup terrorists.”

Laughter as the cameras zoomed in to capture Fitzclarence’s sneer.

“You think I should have included them in the count? Maybe you’re right.” The musician scraped one hand across his stubbled jaw. “It was never about us. Even when we were alone – rare as that was – Taniya would be snapping selfies and tweeting about ‘quality couple time’.” He grimaced. “Her social media adviser said she got the most re-tweets when she tagged me and the band. I was just a prop to her promotion machine.”

The audience sighed their sympathy, but the host waggled his fingers.

“Your count comes up short,” he said. “That’s only ten.”

“Only?” Fitzclarence raised a derisive eyebrow, then looked away, jaw firming, thick dark hair falling over his eyes. “I don’t think I can talk about number eleven.”

Max wriggled in his seat, eager as a puppy begging for a treat.

“Come on, Theo, I won’t tell.”

He mimed zipping his mouth closed, then batted his lashes at the close-up camera.

Fitzclarence kneaded his fist against his chest.

“Nah, man. All I can say is his name starts with a C.”

More gasps and a drawn out ‘ooooh’ from the host made the musician smirk.

“You work it out,” he said.

“I’ve never been good with puzzles.” Max played to the audience. “So I thought we’d better go straight to the source.” He flung out his arms. “Let me present – fresh from her star turn on Broadway – Ms Taniya Webb!”

The studio lights dimmed and a spotlight picked her out, seated on a dazzling crescent moon, descending from above with a rain of golden glitter. The statuesque Webb high-kicked her diamond heels and blew kisses to everyone except Fitzclarence.

“Max, darling,” she said as he helped her off the swing.

“Now, if I can’t convince you two to kiss and make up, you can at least shake hands,” he said.

Webb lifted one exquisite dark shoulder and pouted over it.

“I don’t think so, darling. Theo’s a sweet boy, but it seems he can’t quite count. I make it at least seventeen in our marriage… with his groupies.”

The audience applauded as she tapped the host’s dropped jaw closed then patted his cheek.

“I’ve just tweeted about it,” she said. “You can read all the details there.”

The anti-cupid

Talk about a writing challenge – AWC’s Furious Fiction this month almost defeated me. Why? Because the first criteria was it had to be set in a library or bookstore and, if you read Sweet serendipity, you’d know I did that last month. Plus, you had to include at least six of their twenty words. But inspiration springs eternal and one of those words was cupid…

The other nineteen words – smelt, broken, music, grubby, around, game, coffee, mechanical, hands, beige, twelve, backpack, letters, nameless, cowboy, operate, train, pungent and untouched – are all included in my story: The Anti-Cupid.

Twelve broken hearts in an hour.

A new record.

Boris surveyed the bookstore from his perch on the counter, a faint sneer tugging at his lips. His patch, his rules and most of the lovelorn had no idea how to play the game.

Still, one couldn’t afford to rest on one’s laurels.

That was the express train to complacency station, followed by demotion and the dead-end siding of incarnational opportunities. If he didn’t watch out, he’d be back as a fly, distracting some grubby, nameless, post office sorting-room minion to ensure the love letters were misdirected.

He shuddered.

Anything but that.

‘Are you alright, Boris?’ Gwyn said and he twisted expertly away from her reaching hands, leaping to the floor and darting into the best seller aisle.

‘Boris!’ she called, but there was only so much of her pawing he could stand.

He reached the cross aisle and looked for opportunities. A middle-aged woman flicked through the journals. Two office workers gossiped next to the latest biographies of movie stars and music producers. A tall man in jeans browsed the Westerns. A student with a backpack stole curious glances at a short woman with hair the colour of wasabi, who read the blurb on a fantasy novel.

The pungent aroma of blossoming love drifted from them.

Boris sauntered forward as the student said, ‘That’s, er, that’s a good book. Have you read her Steampunk one? With the mechanical corset?’

Wasabi-girl looked up and grinned. ‘I loved that book. When they smelt the copper and Tippi injects it into the automaton and Pickerel says -’

‘“That’s not how we operate!”’ they chorused and smiled at each other.

Boris’s cold nose hit the back of the student’s leg at the same moment the green-haired girl said, ‘Want to get a coffee and talk Steampunk?’

It was hard to say which startled the student more, but she stammered agreement as they both exclaimed over what a gorgeous cat he was. Boris bunted his head against their ankles, weaving between the women’s legs in an arcane match-breaker pattern. He purred his satisfaction. They might leave together, but there was no hope for their budding romance now.

He looked around. The cowboy had abandoned the Westerns and was sidling towards the lone woman who clutched a beige Moleskine like it was her bridal bouquet.

Not today.

Not on Boris’s watch.

No-one left his bookstore untouched.

Heroines and monsters

I love a good once upon a time and happy ever after, and best of all I love a reimagined fairy tale. But the gender roles in many fairy stories are depressingly predictable. The boys go on adventures and quests. The girls wait: for something to happen; something to change; for a knight in shining armour to ride up, slay the monster and save them.

Sometimes, the poor dears can’t even be bothered staying awake – those girls are so passive they’re asleep.

It’s more ho hum than fe fi fo fum.

illustration of Melusine - half-woman half-dragon I prefer stories where women get to do some questing, stomping and slaying of their own.

The new Heroines Anthology from The NeoPerennial Press is full of such tales, including a short story I wrote about the daughter of the medieval monster countess, Melusine.

A quick refresher, in case you thought she was just the two-tailed logo on the Starbucks coffee cup (yes, but…). Melusine married the Count of Anjou on the clear understanding with her husband that she’d have one day a week to herself. Curiosity, thy name is Raymond! He broke his promise and spied on her in the bath, only to discover she was half-serpent. She was unimpressed by his betrayal, sprouted wings and flew out the window, denouncing him.

You go, girl!

I’ve loved Melusine ever since I read The Wandering Unicorn by Manuel Mujica Láinez, a couple of years after that novel was translated into English by Mary Fitton in 1985. So when I needed to reimagine a woman’s story from myth or history to submit to the anthology I thought of her and her children. Now, most accounts of Melusine say she bore ten monstrous sons for Raymond, Count of Anjou.

And I wondered… what if she had a daughter?

Louise Pieper at 2019 Heroines Festival, Thirroul The other influence on Melusine’s Daughter was the medieval ballad, from the Dutch folk tale, of Heer Halewijn. This thoroughly repulsive, magically powerful bloke was the progenitor of Bluebeard and other horrible mass-murdering chaps in folk stories and songs. The unnamed heroine princess of The Song of Lord Halewijn is a delight. She rescues herself from a dangerous situation and doesn’t take any lip from her would-be killer. Or his mum.

You can check out one of the versions of the ballad and its translation here, if you like a bit of medieval sass.

If you’d like to read Melusine’s Daughter, you can purchase the Heroines Anthology: volume 2 from The NeoPerennial Press. She’s keeping company with Cassandra and Bast and Boudicea and many more intriguing imaginings of marvellous women, all of them written by intriguing and marvellous women writers.

I enjoyed writing a character who comes to understand it takes more than scales to make a monster, and who embraces her monstrous heritage. Just as well – there’s only three weeks left for me to finish my short story to submit for the next CSFG anthology, Unnatural Order, which is all about telling the monsters’ side of things.

So, wish me luck as I polish up some more scales.

They’re what all the cool monsters are wearing this season.

Sweet serendipity

It was a tough round of writing requirements for the AWC’s Furious Fiction challenge this month. In 500 words or less you had to include the name of at least one element from the periodic table AND the words ‘traffic’, ‘jowls’ and ‘hidden’ AND something that buzzes AND the first and last letter had to begin with an ‘s’. Phew!

Thankfully, library science came to my rescue – doesn’t it always? – and this sweetly serendipitous thing happened:

“Seriously?” Wilson glared at the librarian, smiling serenely behind a desk misleadingly labelled ‘Information’. “What sort of system is serendipitous juxtaposition?”

Her Cheshire cat smile grew wider.

“Wonderful.” She breathed rapture into each syllable.

“I don’t have time for this,” he said. “I’m already late. The traffic was appalling. The car park was full. I spilled my coffee and–” He grated out the words through clenched teeth, “I need that book.”

“Then I’m glad we can help you, sir.”

“But you’re not helping. I asked where it was and you said you don’t know.”

“That’s right.” She quivered with excitement like a six-year old about to blow out her birthday candles. “I don’t know where it is.”

Wilson pinched the skin at the top of his nose, hoping to dispel the faint buzz which warned of an impending migraine. It whined on, a tiny wasp trapped in his sinuses.

“Look, miss–”

She raised her left shoulder, grimaced and jerked her head rapidly to the side. The contortion drew his attention to a name badge pinned on her collar.

“Antimony. Right. If you could just tell me–”

“How it works? I’d love to!” Antimony clasped her hands together and said, “The serendipitous juxtaposition of related texts maximises the beneficial outcome of a library user’s anticipative browsing. Browsing, of course, is the art of not knowing what you want until you find it.”

“But I do know what I want,” Wilson wailed. “I know exactly what I want!”

“One book?” Antimony shook her head. “We can’t have you leaving with just one book. The library’s cost-efficiency study discovered that the optimal rate of bibliographic consumption was seven loan items per library user, per visit. Serendipitous juxtaposition allows you to find the otherwise hidden and overlooked items which are perfect for your needs. I can give you the general shelf number to browse.”

“The general…”

Wilson’s mouth opened and closed. He knew his face was flushing, his jowls wobbling like an indignant turkey’s, the damn little wasp drilling a spike of pain into his head. He remembered the doctor’s warning at his last check-up and drew in a long, deep breath.

“Yes,” he said. “Please.”

“Wonderful.” She dragged the word out again, while she scrawled a number on a card and handed it over with a flourish. “By the stairs, sir. Enjoy your browsing”

“Thank you,” he grated out, as his right eye began to twitch.

Antimony’s smile was as wide as the sky. “I’m sure it will be satisfyingly serendipitous.”

Avocado alligators are a snap

Language is weird. Beautiful and weird and I can’t resist it. Plus, it’s been too long since I indulged in a delicious Word for Wednesday*. So let’s go on another adventure in etymology – this time to the Avocado Jungle of DEATH…. **

Or at least to look at the word AVOCADO.

You can enjoy this tropical fruit with its distinctive nutty flavour smashed on toast, mashed into guacamole, cut through a salad or, my personal fave, on vegemite toasties. But have you ever wondered about the origin story of the humble avocado?

Wonder no more.

I found “avocado” trending on the Online Etymology dictionary the other day and was fascinated to discover that the word is basically a humorous homophone – which is a word that sounds like another word – e.g. humorous and humerus, which is why your funny bone is called that, even though you don’t laugh when you whack the end of it.

Ahuakatl was the Nahuatl word for both an avocado and a testicle, because… well it’s the shape, yeah? It’s like orchids, which derive their name from the Latin orchis, from the Greek orkhis, literally ‘testicle’ because of the shape of their root. Remember that, next time you’re buying your mum a nice potted dendrobium from Woolies for Mother’s Day.

So, back to the jolly green fruit.

The Aztec ahuakatl became, over time, aguacate which sounded amusingly similar to the Spanish word for lawyer – avocado. The appeal of lawyer jokes transcends time, culture and language, and the opportunity to call a testicle-shaped fruit a lawyer could not be denied.

And that’s how a tropical fruit rose from humble beginnings to, etymologically speaking, become an advocate (which derives from the Latin advocatus, for one who pleads on another’s behalf). In English, legal advocates are called barristers, after the railing – the bar – which separated the areas of the Inns of Court.

If you hang out in cafes, scoffing coffee and smashed avo on sourdough, you probably know a barista or two. Etymologically, barrister and barista have the English word bar in common. In the case of barrister it’s bar as a barrier in court, and in barista it’s bar as a tavern. Apparently, that meaning of bar wandered into Italian and came back with a coffee – barista simply means bartender in a coffee shop. Strangely similar words, but with a different amount of bragging rights when your mum is telling her friends you’re now working as one.

But, to meander back over to variations on a theme of avocadoes.

The Spanish word avocado became, in Mexican Spanish, alvacata and, since that sounded like alligato and the fruit have that fabulous green or greeny-black skin, avocadoes were called alligator pears in English from 1763.

Now, alligator simply means “the lizard” from the Spanish el lagarto, and they are not generally considered particularly humorous, being ginormous beasties of reptilian devouring. But the word always reminds me of the tale of an alderman who, when accused of corruption, indignantly declaimed that “allegations have been made and I know who the alligators are.”

A handy thing to know, I think. Almost as handy as knowing that the fruit you’re putting on your toast is, in a wordy way, a reptilian lawyer’s testicle.

Enjoy!

*It all started with polydactylus…

**remember Cannibal Women of the Avocado Jungle of Death? A 1989 B movie spoof of Heart of Darkness? No? It was funny at the time…

A real fixer-upper

Librarians believe in Ranganathan’s five rules which include for every book its reader and for every reader his or her book. I don’t know if there’s a similar rule for real estate agents and houses, but one thing is for sure – it’d be very hard to write the sale blurbs for some properties.

With that in mind, here’s my 500 word story for the AWC’s Furious Fiction challenge for August. This month the requirement was to include the following adjectives: “shiny, silver”, “cold and greasy”, “scratched and weather-worn”, “sweet and pungent”, “ink-stained” and “shrill, piercing” and one of them had to be in the first line.

Fixer-upper

Screwed to the gate post are three shiny, silver numbers which make everything behind them look shabby. Unfortunately, behind them is the house I’m supposed to sell.

I hope the owner’s niece doesn’t expect a miracle.

I cram the hatchback between the lilac bush busily devouring the driveway and the scratched and weather-worn fence. The old house crouches beside a main road and its blistered, sun-ravaged face stares down the barrel of another busy street.

Bad Feng Shui.

I sigh and write off eighty-six percent of potential Asian investors right there.

Two steps from the gate and I’m nosing the warped front door.

No yard, no privacy.

Inside, the sullen curtains in the front windows cast the bedrooms into gloom. I write off ninety percent of young families, too.

Street noise, stranger danger and random, passing perverts peering through your bedroom windows.

I cross to the side window and eyeball the house next door. It’s so close you could lean out and shake hands with the neighbours. I wonder if they know what happened, if the owner’s niece contacted them, like she contacted the realty, gushing words down the phone: ‘Aunt Winnie broke her hip. She can’t live there alone. Good thing she was here when she had her fall. She’ll have to sell.’

I touch the windowsill and my fingers find scratched letters where a blister of paint has peeled back to reveal childhood’s vandalism. Winnie Warden. Miss Winifred Jane Warden. Winnie Andino. Mrs G. Andino.

Suddenly, it’s not the shrill, piercing voice of Miss Warden’s niece in my head, but Lissa’s smoky, whiskey brogue. She lounges on tangled sheets, twisting her dark hair around ink-stained fingers, telling me about Cathy and Heathcliff and doomed love.

I snatch my hand away. I don’t believe in ghosts. Or love.

I stride down the linoleum-slick hall, glancing into small, grim rooms. Bathroom. Lounge. Dining. The kitchen cabinets cluster together as if they don’t trust the Formica table or the lace-shrouded windows.

No benches, no dishwasher, no bloody hope.

I drag open the cold and greasy bolt on the back door and fight the fly-screen to get outside as fast as I can. I’m three steps down the path before the sweet and pungent scent hits me and I stop and stare at a garden paradise.

Forget the house. This I can sell.

Can I help you, love?” a voice asks.

I spin around. There’s a man standing in the rose arch between this garden and the equally gorgeous one next door. He’s old and flamboyantly camp, but he’s quick. He sees the realty logo on my shirt and asks sharply, “Is Winnie alright?”

“Who are you?” I blurt out.

“Her neighbour.” He puts out his hand. “George Andino. Tell me she’s alright.”

“She broke her hip and can’t live here alone.” I echo Miss Warden’s niece.

“She won’t be alone,” he says. “I’ve been her best friend for sixty-two years.”

Lissa was right. It’s doomed love, no sale, and a miracle.

Monstrous and unnatural call out

The Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSFG) has announced its next anthology and it’s monstrous and unnatural – just the way we like it!

The submission call for Unnatural Order makes it clear that editors Alis Franklin and Lyss Wickramasinghe are looking for tales about the truly monstrous in all its fanged, furred and tentacled glory. They want “stories that explore humanity through the lens of the inhuman” not protagonists who are just angsty, sparkly people-with-a-problem, or as they put it “rubber forehead aliens”.

No elves, no vampires, no zombies. No pining for a cure tales. They want non-human protagonists with attitude. Embrace the monstrous – you know you want to!

I’ll have to write a new <5000 word story for this, because my monsters do tend to be a little “monster-lite”. But I was thrilled to have one of my stories accepted for the CSFG’s last anthology, A Hand of Knaves, so I’m hoping to craft a suitably unnatural creature to join the Order.

The trouble is narrowing it down…. myths and folklore seethe with monsters who would happily find a home in a speculative fiction tale. I need to marshal my dire hordes or, in effect, run some beasties through a job interview to work out what I’m going to write about.

Read the guidelines at the Unnatural Order link above and get writing, my writerly friends, because submissions will close in October and you don’t want your monstrous progeny to miss out.

An El Jem of a story

I visited Tunisia in 2000 and caught the train from Sousse to El Djem to see their incredible Roman amphitheatre. So, when this month AWC’s Furious Fiction challenge was to write <500 words which took place on a train, I remembered being crammed into that third-class carriage, laughing with the locals about the Sydney Olympics, which were happening at the time, and how you didn’t tend to see that much livestock on passenger trains in Australia.

But, the challenge was also to include something frozen and three three-word sentences, and I didn’t want to write about a train kind of train. So I wrote this:

El Jem

“Ships of the desert is right,” he yelled. “You must feel sick as a dog.”

The words tugged her out of syncopation with the camel’s gait. She jolted
against the padded saddle for a few moments, fingers grasping the bar, then let her spine loosen and picked up her mount’s rhythm again.

Sixty-two. Keeping count was petty, but they’d never finish this trip together if she didn’t make a joke of the way he dumped his insecurities onto her.

The camels were strung in a long train, their shadows etched on the harsh landscape. Each beast was a bulky carriage for one, linked by swaying crescent ropes. The shadow which followed hers was identical in silhouette, until you reached the top and found a rigid block of rider, the only frozen thing under this relentless sun.

“I’m fine,” she called.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“We could stop…”

“No need.”

She always knew what he wanted, because he told her it was what she wanted, and sulked if she didn’t agree. Like he’d sulked in London when she’d refused to finish their holiday early and in the comfort of a tour bus.

“You’d like it. Everywhere you want. All the sights.”

“But I don’t want the fourteen day if-it’s-Tuesday-this-must-be-Salzburg version of Europe.”

“It’d be safer.”

“Safe is boring.”

“Safe is safe.”

What was the point of backpacking if you had a tour-guide minder the whole way?

Her knee felt suddenly hot and damp and she glanced down to find his camel rubbing its foam-flecked lips against her cargo pants.

“That’s so gross. Keep it back.”

“I can’t stop it.”

“Ahlan sadiqi!’ she called to one of their guides. “Can you stop this camel slobbering on my leg?”

“Almost there, sayyida!” His grin flashed, white as his robe.

Okay, sure. She shrugged. It was only camel spit.

“You were the one who wanted to come to Tunisia,” he called from behind her.

“Yeah.” Sixty-three.

“You wanted to ride camels to this stupid coliseum.”

“Yeah.” Sixty-four.

“What if it’s got rabies?”

“I had my shots.”

His camel moved closer and hers gave a rumbling growl of discontent that she almost echoed.

“I worry about you, babe.”

Oh, that ‘babe’ made it sixty-five. He knew it annoyed her.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to. I’m fine.”

“Look at me, babe.”

Sixty-damn-six.

She twisted to look over her shoulder and found his camel so close it could have bitten off her ear. He was staring at her, holding up a little box with a… No.

“Marry me, babe.”

“Are you joking?”

“I love you.”

“You’re kidding me. You couldn’t have picked a better spot to ask?”

“Better? Like what?”

“The Eiffel Tower? Gondola in Venice? The Viennese fiacre?”

The camels crested a rise and below them lay the plain with the ancient amphitheatre rising from it. She caught her breath. It was magnificent.

“This whole stupid trip was your idea,” he said.

Sixty-seven. The straw that broke the camel’s back.

Heyer there, Regency fun

I’ve been writing a Regency era fantasy romance and that means reading a lot of Regency romance (oh, the hardship!) and immersing myself in Georgette Heyer’s slap-up-to-the-echo dialogue. So much so, when it came time to write a nifty 500 words for the AWC’s June Furious Fiction challenge I opened my brain and a whole lot of Regency nonsense fell out.

The challenge* was to include a button, to start a sentence with “The air was thick with” and to set the story at a party.

So, here’s my bit of Regency fun, which I called Heyer Nonny Nonny:

“Well, I say he’s a curst rum touch!”

Thomas Bellesley glared at his friends. Chuvham blinked owlishly back at him, too much of a slow-top to readily share his disgust. Freddy Fullarton started to speak but Tom went on, with all the indignation his rather slight nineteen-year-old frame could summon.

“Dashed loose in the haft and he’s no business talking to my sister.”

“You above par, Bells?” Freddy laid down his cards with the careful precision of a man who was, himself, a trifle bosky. “Take leave to tell you, it ain’t the thing. Devilish bad ton.”

“That’s what I’m saying. I ain’t one of your high sticklers, but I know my duty when a loose fish like Smale singles Sally out for his havey-cavey gallantries.”

“By Jupiter, don’t talk fustian,” Freddy said. “She’s no schoolroom chit and Smale’s an out-and-outer, a regular Dash! Why do you think he’s here, at your aunt’s little card party, if it ain’t –”

“Dashed smoky is right, Freddy! He’s a sad rip and Sally oughtn’t –”

“Gammon!” The air was thick with bright songbird chatter which Freddy’s condemnation undercut, like the croaking of a crow. “Ain’t the thing to talk about your sister in that way. Anyone would think you were three parts disguised or –”

He paused, mouth gaping like a startled fish.

“Cork-brained,” Chuvham finished for him.

Tom rounded on Chuvham. “Just because you wouldn’t care two pins if a rakehell like Smale–”

“Bells!” Freddy said, urgently.

“A rakehell,” Thomas insisted, “like –”

“M-my Lord Smale,” Freddy stuttered, addressing himself over his friend’s left shoulder.

Tom turned as far as his high shirt-points would allow. Smale, slap up to the echo in a swallow-tailed coat, fawn inexpressibles and an exquisitely tied cravat, gave them a mocking little bow.

“Gentlemen. I trust I am not interrupting?” He raised his quizzing glass and settled his sardonic gaze on Tom. “Bellesley we must, we positively must, have a quiet word.”

Tom lurched to his feet and said, “I am happy to meet you at the time and place of your choosing, sir. Mr Fullarton here will act as my second.”

“The devil I will!” Freddy cried. “You’ve shot the cat, Bells.”

“Badly foxed,” Chuvham agreed.

“Must you make a cake of yourself, Tom?” Miss Bellesley stepped around Smale and laid her gloved hand on his arm. She was in quite her best looks, wearing a round gown of sprigged muslin and their mother’s pearls. “You can’t arrange an affair of honour with Smale when I’ve agreed to marry him.”

“M-marry?” Tom stared, thunderstruck. “You’re gammoning me! His – his reputation!”

“I don’t care a button for any of that,” Sally said. She smiled up at her beau. “Of course men were deceivers ever.”

“Ah, sigh no more, lady.” Smale’s lips twitched but he went on, gravely, “You shall be blithe and bonny.”

“Yes, I rather think I shall.” Sally gave an irrepressible chuckle.

“Queer in your attic,” Tom said, “the pair of you!”

*Check in to the Australian Writers’ Centre Furious Fiction page at 5pm on the first Friday of the month for the next challenge – 500 words, 500 dollars, 55 hours. It’s a lot of fun.

Democracy sausage

We came, we saw, we ate our democracy sausages and the results of last Saturday’s federal election are mostly in – it looks like it’s business as usual. My social media feeds are full of angst and ennui, fear and frustration. All I can offer in response is a little furious fiction…

The story had to include the words MAYBE, MAYHEM, DISMAY, MAYOR and MAYONNAISE.
The story’s first word had to be an 11-letter word.
The story, at some point, had to include someone or something RUNNING.

As usual, you can check out the winning entry etc on the AWC website and read on for my <500 words worth.

Democracy Sausage

“Sausonomics? Sausnography? Come on Tash, help me out here. Sausocracy?”

Jason turned the bread-wrapped, charred meat product over and held it aloft.

“The democracy sausage! Something we all believe in.”

I groaned. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“Something we all agree on.” He grinned. “That’s important.”

“Rare as hen’s teeth,” Reg said.

“But it’s not even true.”

‘It’s an alternative fact.” Jason shrugged.

“What about vegetarians? Vegans?”

“There’s always outliers…”

“Foodies? People with taste-buds?”

“It’s what the sausage represents that’s important, Tash. It’s a unifying political symbol for the disillusioned masses.”

“You can’t have a sausage run for parliament.”

“Agreed,” Reg said.

“Right. That would be madness. Mayhem…” Jason’s grin widened and a diabolical gleam lit his eyes. “Someone else does the running with the democracy sausage as our mascot.” He drew in an exultant breath. “We start a new political party!”

“You are not calling it the Sausage Party.”

Reg choked on his beer.

Jason started pacing.

“S.A.U.S. – serious, superior, special Aus – nah, an acronym won’t work.” He stared at the offending object in his hand. “The Banger Party!”

“Just, no.”

“Wurst Party?” Reg said. “Wiener Party?”

I face-palmed.

“The Savoury Party.” Jason swept the sausage in a wide, banner-like arc and across again for the by-line. “Sweeet!”

“Mixed messages.” Reg shook his head.

“All things to all people,” Jason shot back.

“Lot of policy decisions to make. Onions or not?”

“Onions.”

“Above or below the sausage?”

“Can’t ignore OH&S, mate.”

“Fair enough. Sauce?”

I stared from one to the other in dismay. It was like watching a ping-pong match between two juiced-up meerkats.

“Definitely sauce.”

“What kind?”

Jason frowned. “Serious issue. Potentially divisive.” His eyes flicked, as if he was weighing up arguments. “Tomato sauce,” he declared.

Reg rumbled dissatisfaction. “Barbeque’s a serious contender, mate.”

“What about mustard?” I suggested, fed up with their nonsense. “Maybe a bit of sauerkraut?”

“Have to be locally produced,” Reg cautioned. “Section 44.”

“Sure,” I said. “Better embrace diversity and chuck on some marmalade and mayonnaise.”

“Come on, Tash,” Jason said, “get real. It’s gotta be tomato. Other condiments just can’t ketchup.”

He held it together for a beat, then they both started cackling like maniac chooks.

“Politics is serious,” I protested.

“Not really.” He eyed the sausage. “We’ve got an Elvis impersonator as our mayor, they’ve elected a comedian to be president of the Ukraine, and the Cheeto P.O.T.U.S. is a bad punchline to a terrible joke.”

“Okay,” I said. “But how many people do you seriously think would vote for a sausage?”

Reg sucked air through his teeth, like he was doing the numbers.

Jason took a big bite of his democracy sausage, chewed thoughtfully, and grinned.

“All we’d need is nineteen votes and a preference deal for the Senate,” he said.