4 minute read
Lane Cove gets creative with 100 word entries
100 words
Our new 100-word story competition showcases writers we have within the community. Each month we will publish a selection of these stories. We hope that our readers get as much enjoyment from reading them, as our contributors have had in writing them.
Alice Street is where my heart flies when I think of my beautiful brothers, parents and wonderful grandmother. Now ghosts who I can conjure up, my throat tightens as I reminisce. It was there I played in the security of family. Happy innocent days, my imagination was boundless, I was Tarzan. Sixty years ago we played under the home of my Nan. I’m now her age and realise the powerful truths that she showed me.
One day, when my grand daughter is still young enough to imagine but old enough to appreciate, I will take her to see Alice Street.
Graham Jones, Greenwich Sophie Serafim, Longueville
Blood. Gushing, spurting, pooling before my eyes. It must have hit an artery. I felt sick; nauseous. I closed my eyes. Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Come on, you can do this. I forced them open, taking in the ghastly scene. He was trying to stem the blood flow with his hands, the red seeping through his fingers. My vision was going fuzzy – my brain trying to save me. I couldn’t do this. Picking up the remote, I hit fast forward and sighed bitterly. I was never going to be ready for Game of Thrones.
Kari Leigh, Lane Cove
Needing milk, I'd gone to Coles in my worn tradie gear - khaki shorts, short-sleeved shirt and sandshoes - and on return was carrying a fabric bag with my needs plus an impulse purchase of frying pan and saucepan. I was ten metres short of my door next to the hotel when the girl spoke to me. "It's raining, isn't it." "Yes it is," I agreed. Wonder what brought that on? I thought as I walked past. Four steps further on, she called after me "Have you got a home?"
The answer was clear. As a vagrant, I needed help.
He sits curled up on the cold hard pavement as piercing westerly winds swirl around him. How did he get here? Married, 2 kids, a house in the suburbs, in a flash it was all gone. Bored with life he tried recreational drugs, it wasn’t enough, next came heroin. He hasn’t seen his family for 2 years and misses them terribly. He hasn’t shot up for a few weeks now, no money!
A helping hand offers a steaming cup of coffee, a warm bed for the night and tomorrow, assistance to turn his life around and get his family back!
Patricia Clarey (Pat), Greenwich
TO ENTER: Email your story with your name, address and phone number to
editor@thevillageobserver.com.au.
CONDITIONS: Stories must be exactly 100 words and can be about any subject and in any writing style. They must be original and unpublished. There is no limit to the number of stories that you contribute during the year. Each month, selected entries will be published in TVO. At the end of the year, all entries will be judged based on their originality and creativity.
THREE WINNERS WILL BE SELECTED TO RECEIVE A $50 BURNS BAY BOOKERY VOUCHER.
Alan Ecob, Lane Cove
The brush turkey was an unwelcome visitor. With powerful, sinewy legs and sharp, clawed feet it destroyed the beautifully tended garden as it explored, sweeping up the carefully laid out mulch into nesting mounds with no regard for the work of the gardener who had created a wonderful sanctuary.
Distraught, the gardener took advice how to discourage this wilful beast. Many methods were employed and eventually the turkey sought refuge elsewhere. But it was only a pyrrhic victory for the garden’s owner. Nature had worked a miracle and this week a healthy, fluffy baby chick emerged. The rhythm of life!
Jill Curtin, Northwood
It’s so late it’s early when I rub the cleanser into skin: the smoky light of winter dawn diffuses through the window and brushes across pale, fleshy stomach swelling over the sides of dark jeans. Nobody except for me is awake but I pull my jeans up anyway: inhale – tight! – and exhale carefully.
That’s when I catch my eyes in the mirror, staring sorrowfully from their sunken, sleepless self-pity. They are cast against a face stripped of mineral powder, a face that suddenly stings and I splash water, reach blindly for a towel. The cleanser bleaches it between my hands.
“You always could look right inside me darling, and tell me what’s on my mind.” I'm thinking of a neat hole, soon to be covered with titanium. Parts of me that never saw sunlight are being stirred by puffs of air. There are no nerves where she's gone, into the core of me. The me of me.
“What?” “I need you like I need a...”
There’s a groan. “Brain surgery patients. All comedians.”
I should’ve vetted my surgeon for her ability to appreciate a pun.
“Doing well. Nearly finished.”
Kylie Webber, Lane Cove
What excitement. Bess heavily swollen with calf on the line with the Flyer due. Gramps riding bareback up the track waving his red shirt.
With the Flyer stopped metres from Bess, nine bush kids invited aboard. The open mouth wonder of it all.
Sampling the nectar of the gods called lemonade, the cold pathway down the gut and the burp that followed. Heaven sent.
Overwhelming delight to be introduced to Anne of Green Gables, to fall in love with Gilbert and begin correspondence with Lucy Maud Montgomery, who wrote how delighted she was to find a reader so far away.
