The Finest 500 is an annual competition for Geelong Writers’ members. This year, writers were invited to submit prose or poetry to 500 words in response to the theme: Remnants. Read five of the longlisted pieces below.
LONGLISTED: ‘Dregs’ by Katie Brice
‘So, you’re basically interpreting the dregs?’ Martin asked maybe a little too sceptically.
Uma paused, mid-spin of the up-turned cup and glared at him. He’d clearly said the wrong thing.
‘An interesting choice of word for material that holds such relevance to you.’
Martin swallowed. He decided silence and feigned interest should follow.
Snake oil had never been Martin’s jam. Tea wasn’t even his jam; he was a coffee drinker, but he was desperate.
Uma covered the cup with her oversized, fleshy hand and closed her eyes.
‘Rest your hand on the cup please Martin. I want you to channel your question through the leaves’.
Martin felt the instinctive need to take a deep breath to demonstrate his ‘channelling’. Eye closing though, was a step too far.
Martin wanted to move back home. The only thing in his way was his 14-year-old terrier, Felicity. She was too old to be put through a long-haul flight, but waiting for her to die in a country he’d decided was no longer home, felt like torture.
‘Let’s see what’s in store for you,’ Uma said tapping the couch.
Martin looked anxious. ‘Should I come over?’
Uma’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘Unless you’d like me to translate your future alone?’
That’s exactly what he’d like her to do actually; what he’s paying her for. If he could read his own future, he’d have done so from home, using his favourite Royal Doulton mug. Not sitting in some rosemary infused granny flat with some surly baby boomer.
‘Sure,’ he smiled.
Red, Martin’s good natured but rather thoughtless housemate, was willing to adopt Felicity but was that fair to his faithful old pal? Felicity, not Red.
Conversely, was it fair for Martin to sacrifice his own happiness for that of his dog? After such a happy life together, resentment would be terrible.
Uma glared into the cup, turning it in her pudgy hands. ‘Umm interesting Martin. Look.’
She handed him the cup, handle first so he instinctively reached for it.
Uma retracted it quickly. ‘Looking only please, we don’t want to accidently dislodge your future now do we Martin?’
Martin’s phone beeped. A text.
Uma ignored the noise and reached for a symbol-filled, laminated sheet. ‘Definitely a crayfish,’ she said looking from cup to sheet and back again. ‘A crayfish, a flower and maybe a…
The phone beeped again, a reminder of the unopened message.
‘Put that on silent so I can focus, please.’ She closed her eyes again.
Martin took the opportunity to read the message while simultaneously flicking the silent switch. It was Red.
‘Did you take last night’s lasagne for lunch? Turd. Oh, and I’m pretty sure the dog’s dead.’
Martin looked up to see Uma’s heavily lidded eyes still closed.
He stood, grabbed his coat, and headed for the door. ‘Good luck with the dregs,’ he managed through tears that were quick to come.
‘Good old Felicity,’ Martin said aloud as the door closed. ‘Decision made old girl.’
LONGLISTED: ‘Hearse of my dreams’ by Catherine Bell
There’s something people don’t know about me. Something I rarely mention. Most people would consider it macabre, gruesome, even odd. But for me it’s normal. It’s intriguing. I’m fascinated by funerals.
As a child, I was protected from the harsh reality of death. Such matters were not discussed in front of children. I didn’t attend my grandparents’ funerals.
The remnants of such a childhood devoid of notions of death, gradually grew into an obsession with funerals. I became increasingly curious about its secret world, determined to demystify the taboo topic of my formative years.
While my primary school friends dreamt of fairies, rainbows and Prince Charming, my other reality was vastly different. Death, funeral directors, morticians, embalming techniques, and drive-through viewings L.A. style were my fantasy world.
I longed to drive a sleek, jet-black hearse. Professional uniform, epaulettes and peaked cap. I imagined a tide of black mourners trailing behind. Thunderous clouds threatening low on the horizon. A melancholic scene perhaps. But I was light of heart. I was behind the steering wheel of a hearse.
Years later, I applied to work in a funeral home. No formal interview, more a test of one’s queasiness.
Jack, the funeral director, takes me behind the scenes at Guyett’s Funeral Parlour. He ushers me into the preparation room. Cold and clinical like an operating theatre. Rows of fluorescent tubes flood the room with artificial light. High narrow windows afford glimpses of scudding clouds. Rubber hoses snake and coil across the wet, tiled floor. Pungent smells of formaldehyde. Gleaming stainless-steel sinks. Open shelves stacked with surgical implements, shrouds, wigs, embalming oils and small boxes of makeup.
A tall man stands by the largest sink. Waxen face, downward eyes, hands clasping a scalpel. Oversized rubber apron, elbow-high plastic gloves and gumboots. Heartbreak Hotel playing on the radio. He pauses, turns down the music, and waits for me to leave.
A body lies on the gurney next to him. Thin and rigid, draped with a white sheet. My eyes trace its outline – head, nose, shoulders, ribs, down both legs to the twin peaks of the toes. They hang off the end of the gurney like discarded possessions. A simple nametag dangles from a big toe. A price tag on a life.
Others may have flinched. I smile with secret pleasure.
Jack throws open the full-length metal doors of the refrigerated cabinets. I peer in. More bodies. A surge of shivery delight electrifies my spine.
He whispers apologetically, ‘Only three corpses today.’
We move into the showroom. Mood lighting, muzak and plush carpet. Basic coffins of unpolished pine and coarse cotton lining. Mahogany caskets boasting silk padding and luxurious goose-down pillows.
‘We make our money here,’ Jack confides.
I smile. I feel at home. I get the job.
Nowadays, as the equipoise between life and death becomes less favourable, I have little cause for concern. It’s thrilling to know I’ll soon be a passenger in that sleek, black hearse of my childhood dreams.
LONGLISTED: ‘Leftover Legal Tender’ by Harry Roberts
Highly coveted by those driven by avarice and desire, I’m a gleaming disk and pure of gold. Majestic, and historic, I’m the iconic (£) monetary symbol of the British Empire, over which the sun never sets.
My names are both formal and colloquial. They call me a quid, a smacker, a pound sterling and a bullion coin. Those with a poetic bent use rhyming slang and call me ‘bread and honey’ (money) or ‘sausages and mash’ (cash). I’m too important for playful words and childish rhymes that ‘tarnish’ my reputation. I prefer my proper and dignified name – a Gold Sovereign.
In 1489, my dynasty began when the seventh Henry ruled, and his Tudor reign started. I fell out of favour until King George III restored my status. My family’s antecedents stretch back to 1066 when Norman conquerors performed a ‘sterling’ job of transforming our nation.
Diminutive relatives don’t compare and always fall short of my value. My half-brother and the others are mere small change. My copper friends have a ‘heavier’ burden to compete. None can challenge my monetary preeminence and fiscal superiority.
Designed, crafted, and minted in Perth, I was circulated in 1917. At 105 years of age my golden surface still shines – not a scratch, not a dent, nor any imperfection. Millions of my brothers have not fared so well, stored in banks, hidden in collections or just plain lost in time.
World War I was raging, and the future was not so bright. I faced an ephemeral existence, terminated by a triumphant German Mark, but I stopped the dreaded ‘Fritz’. I filled our soldiers’ pockets and paid the price for final victory. Imagine me with a Reich Sadler Eagle and Kaiser Wilhelm’s head! Even Saint George, my motif, might not slay the Dragon, nor ‘Goodness’ triumph over ‘Evil’.
My Empire’s pride and values are told by images and text. Mute I may be, but Latin text spells out our Roman heritage. It announces George V as: Sovereign, Emperor of India and Defender of the Protestant Faith, anointed by our Christian God. Emblematic, proud and bearded, his youthful image stamps his authority over all.
I’m the ‘£’in £.s.d., a remnant from Latin’s Librae Solidi Denarii, or Pounds, Shillings and Pence. Past my prime, and in decline, new systems were devised. 1966 heralded my demise, replaced by one Ozzie dollar of just 100 cents. With no respect, and in neglect, they put me away on Valantine’s Day. My fall was great and ended my veneration. Is there no end to my humiliation?
A shadow of my former glory, I’m obsolete, but legal tender, valued one thousand times the Pound I claim to be. Electronic funds now rule, and I’m replaced by computers, paper and plastic.
I’m an anachronistic survivor, who suffers the ignobility of being called, ‘jewellery’, ‘collectable’ and an ‘investment’. King George’s dead, our faith’s divided, and our empire’s dissolved. I survive, just a remnant from a glorious empire over which the sun has finally set.
LONGLISTED: ‘Love in the remnants’ by Bev Blaskett
Four decades on, the tangible traces of our time together can be found in my kitchen’s bottom draw, my dusty shed, old photo albums and my internet search history. I hold onto the disused stick mixer, a musty bundle of letters, and a few faded photos.
The objects are immaterial; what we shared lives on in us. The magic of the Don Burrows concert is now in your music; the transport of Friday nights at the Melbourne Theatre Company returns when I anticipate any live event I attend; the exhilaration of pounding the Fairfield circuits is in my muscle memory. The energy of your dance music is in my pulse. The remembrance of loft bed comfort is in my morning oats. Remember the radiator with huge reflector you had salvaged, which we used to toast our bread and warm our skin? We needed that radiator. Once inside the refuge of the bedroom, it was hard for us to stay in our clothes.
You offered me growing empathy as I struggled with the reverberations of my troubled childhood. You rose to the challenges of my mood swings and insecurities. You supported and accompanied me as I pursued research and prestige in new cities, but I saw distance grow between us as you gave yourself in the work of supporting people with disabilities. You extended practical help to a wide friendship circle, as I contended on my own in the realm of ideas.
How was it that I let my work ambitions and inevitable petty annoyances lead me away from you? How could I have hoped for deeper love from someone else? You delighted in engaging with children, but you did not want the responsibility of fatherhood; and then someone new promised children with me. I was taken in when I denied your warnings. I set aside the lessons of years of generosity, patience and creativity that you had offered me. In retrospect, I see myself as disloyal, capricious, naïve.
Afterwards, our separate marriages dissolved; partners came and went. We each remained creative, on our different, distant paths. Your imaginative genius deepened and you radiated inspiration and fun in surprising musical venues, to young and old. Your enthusiasm and care nourished a fellowship of varied musicians.
My quests were diverse, but more superficial: I tried out different hats of lecturer, counsellor, and manager. For ten years now, that of a support worker; for three decades that of mother. Always meeting my commitments, hoping to improve myself.
In times past, for all my youthful potential and intellectual aspirations, my mind was ill at ease. Now, more precarious in my body and conscious of limited time, I try to practice the self-compassion to heal; to feel myself whole. I am learning to accept and embrace my imperfections. Can I find peace in knowing who I am, just as I am?
Perhaps one day I will gather the courage to reconnect with you. Maybe now I can, just as I am.
LONGLISTED: ‘Scraps, Leftovers and God’s Garden’ by Geoff Gaskill
‘It’s part of the great tapestry of life,’ Bob’s dad said as he hauled weeds from his garden.
‘What’s a tapestry?’ Bob asked.
The old man used his garden time to answer all those dad-son questions about life, the universe and everything. Yesterday it had been the passing parade, a subject Bob didn’t get. Another time his father talked of life as a highway. ‘We’re all cars driving places but sometimes the car breaks down. Sometimes it runs out of petrol. Sometimes you get lost.’ That one was OK. Now there was the tapestry thing.
His dad explained he was using metaphors. ‘With the tapestry,’ he began, ‘think of it as though God has a big carpet-like thing on his wall called a tapestry. It’s his blueprint for the world. Understand?’
Bob did–and didn’t. But the idea of God living in a big house with a big carpet-like thing sounded cool.
Bob’s parents might not have been churchgoers but that didn’t stop his father talking about God’s house with its many rooms. And now tapestries.
Did every room have one, Bob wondered.
‘And each one of us,’ his dad continued, ‘is one insignificant thread–they’re called wefts and warps.’
Bob frowned. ‘But what happens when the carpet-thing …
‘Tapestry …’
‘… tapestry … gets old and frayed?’ He pointed to an old threadbare and raggedy carpet scrap his dad used had used as a weed mat.
‘He chucks it out,’ his dad replied. ‘Like I do.’ He covered the carpet-weed-mat with mulch. ‘And then he makes a new one,’ he added.
Later, Bob thought of his father and the ragged carpet-cum-tapestry-weft-and-warp-metaphor-thing each time he heard about someone dying. ‘When God pulls your thread from his tapestry’, his father concluded, ‘you’re no more than a scrap. A leftover. A remnant.’
That was a worry. Bob frowned again.
Seeing his son’s discomfort, the old man added, ‘But like in the garden, when those bits break down, they help the next year’s crop grow. It’s God making his new tapestry.’
Does that mean, Bob asked, that God’s Garden is a gigantic recycling centre for remnants and off cuts and other things? He pointed to the weeds his father had dug up. ‘Like yours?’
‘You could say so,’ his father nodded, and as if for emphasis tossed the last of his weedy scraps in on top of the compost pile.
Bob looked around his fathers’ veggie patch. He wondered whether God’s Garden flourished as well.
***
It had been many years since Bob and his dad had those garden conversations. These days the old man was himself no more than a weft-warp-remnant, rotting in God’s compost heap next to his many-roomed house.\
Bob reckoned the old man would think that a fitting place to wait his turn for recycling–or being rewoven into God’s next tapestry.
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