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    Side by Side
    Side by Side
    Side by Side
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Side by Side

    By David Vernon

    ()

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    About this ebook

    When you’re a kid you live in your own world, a world separate from everything else. When you’re a kid a dead branch is anything but a dead branch. It’s a sword, a cricket bat, or even a flying broomstick; it’s whatever you need it to be. For most people their childhood world slowly fades as they get older and one day between jumping to avoid the cracks in the footpath and asking to borrow their parent’s car keys they look down and realise they’re holding a dead branch instead of a light-sabre. But sometimes, childhood worlds don’t fade, they shatter.
    — from "Beneath the Wheat" by Iain Murray

    On windy spring nights, amongst the clean-picked bones, the young make love on favourite graves, roar through the grass on motor-cycles, perform hand-stands on the heads of angels. But tonight the living are still and the still are dead ... all except Mrs Miller who rolls in her plot, complains of rising damp, the roots of the flowers inside her bending, stretching, straining, breaking.
    “An’ did yer remember ter put the cat out, yer lazy ole bugger! Yer jist like yer father was!”
    But dead Mr Miller, too close beside her, again pretends not to hear, yawns, mumbles, scratches his stomach, falls gratefully back into wet earth to dream for eternity ...
    — from "To Begin at the Middle" by Maree Teychenné

    Dennis glanced at the sun peeping above the horizon and slowly rubbed his eyes. It had been a restless night, tossing and turning, and finally waking to find the pillow on the floor, his right foot wedged between the bedside table and the mattress and the sheet around his neck. He had clearly drunk too many drinks last night in celebration. But why? Then it came to him in a rush.
    — from "The Godfather of Balmain" by David Wilkinson

    Twenty-three award-winning short stories from the Stringybark Short Story Awards will delight and intrigue you in this anthology of clever tales from Australian and international short story writers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Vernon
    Release dateMar 24, 2014
    ISBN9781311397294
    Side by Side
    Author

    David Vernon

    I am a freelance writer and editor. I am father of two boys. For the last few years I have focussed my writing interest on chronicling women and men’s experience of childbirth and promoting better support for pregnant women and their partners. Recently, for a change of pace, I am writing two Australian history books. In 2014 I was elected Chair of the ACT Writers Centre.In 2010 I established the Stringybark Short Story Awards to promote the short story as a literary form.

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      Book preview

      Side by Side - David Vernon

      Side by Side — Twenty-three award-winning stories from the Stringybark Short Story Award 2013

      Edited by

      David Vernon

      Selected by

      Kathie Brown, Andrew Perry, Arna Walker and David Vernon

      Published by Stringybark Publishing

      PO Box 464, Hall, ACT 2618, Australia

      http://www.stringybarkstories.net

      Smashwords edition first published 2014

      Copyright: This revised collection, David Vernon, 2018

      Copyright: Individual stories, the authors, various.

      Some of these stories are works of fiction but based on real people and real events. Unless otherwise made clear (and we are sure you can figure it out), those mentioned in these stories are fictional characters and do not relate to anyone living or dead.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this editor and the authors of these stories.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Bushie — Sallie Ramsay

      Now we have the Crocodiles — Ben Goldfarb

      Burying Hortense — Jane Hendy

      Till Death Us Do Part — Pauline McLay

      Belly — C.R. (Ray) Penny

      Ordinary Lives — Mike Woodhouse

      Wrapped in Pink — Jessie Ansons

      Facing the Music — Devita Pathi

      Cow Dung, Mrs Oliphant — Aislinn Batstone

      Side by Side — Pauline Cleary

      Mahmoud — John Poole

      Beneath the Wheat — Iain Murray

      The Ghost and the Gum Tree — Susan K Sutherland

      To Begin at the Middle — Maree Teychenné

      Cicada Summer — Beverley Lello

      Banking on Gold — Dawn Barr

      The River — Bronwyn Cozens

      What Will You Do in Retirement? — Janice Williams

      Lipstick and Mirrors — Beverley Lello

      Eggshells — Colleen Kerr

      The Jar — Beth Merindah

      The Dotted Line — Beverley Lello

      The Godfather of Balmain — Michael Wilkinson

      The Stringybark Short Story Award 2013

      About the Judges

      Acknowledgements

      Other titles by David Vernon at Smashwords.com

      Introduction

      — David Vernon

      This book is the nineteenth anthology of short stories from Stringybark Publishing’s short story awards. It consists of twenty-three stories that received highly commended awards (or won prizes) from the judges in the Stringybark Short Story Award 2013.

      We are often asked how we objectively judge writing when our personal opinion is so subjective. At Stringybark Stories, entries are judged on eight criteria: interest, plot, style, characterisation, setting, grammar and spelling, fit to theme and whether or not the judge would purchase a book containing such a story. With four judges, each entry is potentially marked out of a possible 200 points. But we don’t just rely on mathematics to rank our stories, we then get together and argue face-to-face the merits of the stories.

      What makes our anthologies such good reads is that we don’t simply publish the stories that all four judges enjoy. We might even print a story that one judge detests and three love (as long as all the components of good literature are present). Variety is the spice of life and in this book you will find stories that are thought-provoking, intimate, emotional, sad and funny. We hope that you love nearly all these tales, but we would be disappointed if you loved them all! Such a result would suggest we haven’t done our job and given you the occasional ‘challenging’ read.

      The four judges, Dr Kathie Brown, Dr Andrew Perry, Arna Walker, and David Vernon, read over 200 tales to bring you the cream of the entries. I am sure you will find some real gems amongst this delightful collection of stories.

      David Vernon

      Judge and Editor

      Stringybark Stories

      March 2014

      Bushie

      — Sallie Ramsay

      He heard the voice as clearly as if the speaker was beside him.

      You climb a few ridges then, suddenly, you’re on top and can see for bloody ever. The country stretchin’ away, flat as a tack, until it hits the sea thousands of klicks away.

      He pulled off the road, certain that this was the place. He sat motionless, remembering the terrifying day when he woke to find himself strapped face down to some kind of bed, unable to move. His face pressed into a hole in the mattress so all he could see was worn, cracked yellow-green lino. When he tried to move his head; the cracks in the lino blurred and swam in front of his eyes. He felt sick.

      You awake mate? a cheerful voice crashed into his brain, echoed and bounced around inside his skull. He didn’t know it then but his education about life in the Australian Outback was about to begin.

      G’day mate! How ya goin’? Me name’s Jack but ’ere they call me Bushie. I come from out west of Longreach. Buggered me self up real good comin’ off the biggest buckin’ bull you’ve ever seen. I was that bad they brought me out in a chopper, don’t remember any of that but. Been stuck ’ere a few weeks now. What’s ya name mate? There was no response but undeterred he went on.

      The frame thing you’re strapped to, they use it to turn you. Used to feel real crook when they turned me, but it gets better. But I get real sick of lookin’ at the floor, reckon I know every crack and spot in the lino over ’ere. Oh ho, here comes the Light Brigade; better get ready for the big spin. Better than Luna Park I reckon. Lucky sods aren’t we? Mornin’, ladies!

      Morning Bushie. Bending this poor bloke’s ears already are you? James, after we’ve washed and turned this blabber-mouth, we’ll do you. At least you’ll have something different to look at.

      He was struggling to make sense of the little he could see and hear but failed. Hospital; that was it, that was where he was; hospital. An accident? Why was he strapped down? Did his sister know? A thousand questions to ask but no energy to ask them.

      In the days that followed he learned he had tripped and fallen on the stairs at Wynyard Station and injured his spine, but how badly nobody knew for certain.

      Slowly the frame turned, waves of nausea swept over him, his head spun but although logic told him it wasn’t possible, he knew he was falling. He opened his eyes trying desperately to steady himself by staring at a stain in the ceiling.

      Not much fun is it, mate? It gets better but it’s no picnic gettin’ there. But I’ll race you any time.

      "You’ll race me? What do you mean? His voice, breathy and weak.

      Struth, you’re a Pom, a bloody pommie. You poor bugger, stuck ’ere with only a bushie like me for company. You live here or just visitin’?

      I’m visiting.

      Jeez that’s rough. I made a New Year’s revolution that I’ll race, anyone any time, to be first to do anythin’ like gettin’ out of this bloody frame, scratchin’ me nose, sittin’ out of bed, gettin’ into a wheelchair, standin’ up, walkin’, he hesitated, goin’ home…

      Don’t you mean a resolution?

      Do I? Buggered if I know, all I know is I’m goin’ do it. Will you take me on?

      Weeks and months passed. Bushie talked constantly about the country in northwest Queensland where he had lived and worked all his life,

      Only been down south once before now. It’s alright, real pretty but sort of pale and washed out, not like the bush out west. The colours in the bush mate; you should see the colours, red, purple orange and sunsets that make the sky look like it’s on fire... I just ’aven’t got the words. Ya gotta go and see it for yourself. The country, you can feel it; you can tell it’s been there forever. The black fellars know every inch of it; know better than you know the cracks in the ceilin’ up there. They tell stories from what they call ‘the Dreamtime’ to explain how everything got to be the way it is. They’re as much part of it as the rocks and waterholes, animals and birds. Sometimes I feel like that too. When I’m not there it’s like there’s somethin’ missin’, like the feelin’ in me legs, except it’s missin’ from right inside of me... he stopped, embarrassed. Jeez, I do rabbit on.

      An unlikely pair: Bushie, garrulous, dark-skinned, barrel-chested, almost always cheerful and James, tall, thin, red-haired, taciturn, never using two words where one would do, supported each other through dark days when frustration, fear and pain threatened to overwhelm them. Goading, cajoling and cursing, they struggled together towards their next milestone.

      Bushie did indeed race the young Englishman out of the hated frame into the comparative freedom of a wheelchair. But it was James who struggled from the wheelchair to stand for one long extraordinary second in the parallel bars while Bushie goaded him.

      You’ll have to put more water with it, mate, he called from the other side of the gym. Cops’d have you in the paddy wagon in no time flat if you’re that unsteady!

      He remembered the day Bushie crumpled to the floor clutching his chest as he was getting into his wheel-chair. He remembered pushing frantically on the buzzer for what seemed hours, watching through a gap in the curtains as the crash team tried to revive Bushie, then catching the eye of one of the nurses, seeing her eyes fill with tears as she shook her head.

      Bushie had no next of kin; somehow James managed to cut through yards of red tape to formally claim Bushie’s body and make arrangements for it to be cremated. It all took time, learning to live independently, the complex insurance claim and to drive a car with hand controls.

      A road train roared past in a cloud of bull dust

      He waited until the sun was close to the horizon before opening the car door and hauling himself to his feet. He reached into the backseat for a white oblong box, which he tucked under his arm. Then supported on two walking sticks he walked slowly to the edge where the ridge fell away abruptly to the plain. Balancing awkwardly, he opened the box and held it high. A plume of fine grey ash rose towards the glowing sky and, carried by the wind, spread out across the land.

      "There you go,

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