Stories of Hope

by Aussie Speculative Fiction

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: WITH a background as a sloth scientist in the Costa Rican jungle, and current research protecting an endangered lizard in the middle of nowhere in Western Australia, Holly Sydelle has a love for travel and adventure. Soon to become a doctor of biology, Holly enjoys communication, from presenting at international science conferences, to publishing in scientific journals. Her joy for communication expands into a love of storytelling, a skill she has honed through university studies, writing groups and workshops. Holly’s scientific background gives her a unique and authentic perspective, particularly within the science-fiction genre, which is a perfect mix of her two favourite things: science and creative writing.

  You can find Holly at: www.hollysydelle.com

  The Optimist by K.B.Elijah

  There’s a faerie who lives in my garden

  Behind the shed and up the hill.

  Nestled in the nook of the old oak tree,

  Her wings are blue and her voice is shrill.

  She always smiles at me as I walk

  Around the garden to take in some air.

  One day she joins me on my stroll,

  Laughing happily as the wind tugs her hair.

  “My name is Scout,” she says with a bow,

  “Lady Scout de Dandelion of the Fae.”

  I hold a finger out for her to shake,

  “Pleasure to meet you Scout,” I say.

  We push through the grass that’s bigger than she,

  As she perches on my hand.

  She laughs delightedly, looking around,

  Marvelling at the flowers, the trees and the land.

  “But it’s all mess,” I groan, wrinkling my nose.

  “Weeds and grasses and not much to see.

  I would prefer a neat garden to mine,

  Like the one they have at Number Three.”

  “That’s all concrete,” Scout says with a wave,

  “A man-made creation without a heart.

  Your garden is wild and beautifully free,

  It’s beauty. It’s grace. It’s art.”

  “But I wish I could see the sun,” I moan,

  “I really wanted to go to the beach today.

  Work on my tan, go for a swim,

  Yet the sky is nothing but clouds of grey.”

  “So take the day to do something indoors,

  Do it while the sun isn’t shining.

  Go to the beach when the sun returns:

  Every cloud has a silver lining.”

  “But a storm is coming,” I whinged,

  “Thunder and lightning and hail.

  It will cancel the match I’ve been dying to watch,

  It will make the dogs bark, and delay the mail.”

  “So you get your letters a touch late,

  Is it not worth it for the beauty storms bring?

  A rainbow on the horizon,

  The smell of earth and the songs the birds sing.”

  “But it will rain!” I complain with a frown,

  “I really hate it when it starts to pour.

  Everything will get muddy and wet,

  Dirty footprints all over my floor.”

  “Dirt you can clean, mud you can scrub,

  Think of the farmers in terrible drought.

  The rain will help them get back on their feet:

  Foster their crops and help them to sprout.”

  “You’re right,” I admit, “although I hate to say,

  Because you make me feel like a bad person inside.

  I don’t know how you always do it, Scout:

  You take all the bad things in your stride.”

  She shrugs and laughs, a glint to her wings,

  And waves it off like it’s nothing at all.

  “It’s just about seeing the bright side to life,

  For the world is so big and I am so small.”

  “There’s no point worrying about things that are,

  For they will be the same, despite you and me.

  Fretting and complaining makes no difference at all

  Only in happiness can we truly be free.”

  But when our walk ends and we near the oak tree,

  We see a bird nesting in Scout’s house.

  Its beak is rearranging the twigs and bark,

  Making a home for the baby grouse.

  A tear nestles on Scout’s glowing cheek

  And she starts to cry, and yell and sob.

  “What will I do?” she laments to me,

  “Why did the bird choose me to rob?”

  “Where will I go? How will I live?

  Where will I find a roof for my head?

  I have no money, no job, no skills:

  Take a last look at me, for I’m already dead!”

  “Scout,” I say, holding her still,

  “Don’t worry, remember? It’s all okay.

  For I have a house that has room for two,

  Come on over; you’re welcome to stay.”

  Her mouth turns up; her eyes lose their tears

  And she hugs me tightly, her arms all aglow.

  “Thank you,” she whispers, “for having my back,

  For keeping me positive: it helps, you know?”

  Yet, she is the one who inspired me to be

  Hopeful and happy and free.

  While the Fae only see a glass as half full,

  None are as optimistic as she.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: K.B. Elijah is a fantasy author living in Brisbane, Australia with her husband and three cockatiels. A lawyer by day, and a writer by...also day, because she needs her solid nine hours of sleep per night (not that the cockatiels let her sleep past 6am). She believes that if writing and reading aren’t fun, then something has gone wrong.

  Her anthology of short fantasy stories with twists, The Empty Sky, is available on paperback and ebook now at https://books2read.com/u/b6kY5x. Check out her website at www.kbelijah.com for book reviews, promotions and cute bird photos.

  Twig by Alby Grace

  RON SEES HER TALKING to a tree the first time on a Thursday.

  He’s in the servo and she’s somehow gotten over to the other side of the road. She’s tiny in comparison, but he can see her little hand, reckons he can even see tension in those tiny muscles, looking up the trunk, whispering earnestly, maybe even crying. When they leave again, he tries a soft approach. “What was the tree talkin’ about?”

  She stays silent.

  Twig still thinks Ron kidnapped her from her Suze, and Ron doesn’t have the guts to tell her otherwise, and he doesn’t want to lie to her either, so he doesn’t bring it up and hopes she’s not too traumatised. It’s a habit Twig’s picked up from him, maybe it’s genetic. Internalising. Ron thinks, but can’t remember if his Dad did it.

  After a couple hours driving Twig seems to have cheered up a bit. She’s pouring over the map again, a keen navigator. “We’re well North now, Ron.”

  “That’s good, sweetheart. How far now?”

  She frowns, counting the ks by stretching her fingers along the map, chewed nails, adding up with her lips. “Four thousand left?”

  Ron laughs, and Twig looks confused.

  They pull in for petrol in a town named Herberton. By Ron’s reckoning, they’re about half an hour from Cairns, p’raps only a day off the goal. Can’t get cocky, he tells himself, but he reckons he might’ve pulled it off. He and Twig go into the shop together, Ron’s gripping her hand a little too tight.

  Reba’s not expecting visitors, not today, in fact, she wasn’t expecting anyone in her shop, ever again. The young, tousle-haired, bespectacled father had a pained, desperate look in his eyes, but the girl hasn’t caught on yet. Reba thinks she hasn’t really seen anything yet. “Petrol?” she croaks. She hasn’t used her voice in three days.

  “Have any food?” the lad mumbles. He looks a little young to be a father. Instead of a moustache he has a fine, downy hair on his upper lip. He has a smell about him, two parts fear, one sweat, two milk. Reba smiles.
>
  Twig whispers that she’s hungry too and he squeezes her hand. They get two home-made pies and two cans of coke. “No matter what happens,” says Reba, “there’ll always be a pie and a coke.” The lad laughs, snorts, so does the little girl, in imitation. She has soft brown eyes but a hard little mouth.

  Reba sees the ute all the way down at the bottom of the hill—she knows it’s him. “Take your pies out back, Minister Winstone’s boys are here.”

  Ron jumps, dropping his pie, and watching it as it splatters, slow motion, on the thirsty linoleum. Twig’s calmer, she nods, takes Ron’s hand, carefully balancing her pie and nursing her coke in the crook of her arm. They wander through to the back.

  Ron’s hot and blowing breath all over the place. He hushes, “Hide Twig, hide!” and she knows it’s not a game but thinks she might feel better if she pretends it is one.

  She stays there, cramped behind the pipes of a stinky old sink, for what might be an entire month. She doesn’t know, just that time goes on forever. Occasionally she reaches out and tries to talk to Ron but he always gently quiets her. They hear nothing and see nothing, it’s hot and black and silent. Eventually, Twig whispers, “Can we go?” Ron nods, sharply, though it’s dark and she can’t see him, and hand in hand they walk through and peer out of the servo window.

  The old lady’s gone. Nowhere. Ron’s car is on fire, there’s a big sign spray-painted on it, Declared CONTAMINATED by the Order of the Minister. Twig looks up and sees something in Ron’s yellow-brown eyes change. Like he gets a decade older in one second. There are keys on the hook behind the counter, sort of hidden, and in the back carpark Ron spies a Kingswood, in beautiful condition, except dust-coated. He takes Twig roughly by the arm and sprints to the car, says, “Thanks, old lady,” and Twig repeats, “Thanks, old lady,” and he revs the car and they spit out onto the highway.

  “THE TREES ARE SCARED,” says Twig, as they are turning and twisting downhill into Cairns. “The trees are real scared, they say something bad has happened.”

  “That’s why we’re driving, Buster.”

  The trees don’t care about us, they say we’re all dead.”

  “Stop that nonsense, Twig.”

  Pause. Lush, thick forest, everywhere, shivering.

  “Ron?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did that old lady die?”

  “I dunno Twig, I know as much about it as you.”

  Pause. No birds make sounds.

  “Are the police chasing you? For kidnapping me?”

  “Somethin’ like that.”

  The road has flattened out, there is thick oily smoke in the air, from the direction of Cairns. The wind smells like forest and rubber.

  “The city is on fire,” Twig whispers. Ron opens the glovebox and fumbles with the handgun. He’s used it already—Newcastle, Sydney—but hopes he won’t have to again. “Buster?”

  “Yes?”

  “Keep an eye out for Dad, for a boat, okay? Any boat, we want it.”

  “Are we goin’ in the sea, Dad?”

  “Yes, we are. I hope we are.”

  When they get to the city, Ron ties a blindfold around Twig. “It’s a game,” he says, “see how long you can go without looking.”

  Twig knows it’s not a game but nods okay, very serious. He closes his eyes, himself, in a way. He looks forward. He drives. He knocks past, or over, anything that won’t get out of his way. He has to. He sees eyeballs, tongues, limbs, electrical sparks, water, glass, metal poles in heavy hands. It’s like something’s been born from the catacombs of the city, leapt out, leaving a mucky trail of vicious afterbirth. Ron sees that he will not get a boat in Cairns, that he will not live a moment should he exit the car, that he needs to run away. He presses down the accelerator and drives.

  He says, “Don’t look, Twig,” and she nods again. Ron looks, but does not see. When night falls, they are free, safe from the concrete inferno, and Ron parks the car in the middle of the rainforest. They walk together to the sea, where they wash in the warm salty water.

  It is so beautiful, the beach, the dark, in the water, hundreds of little glowing lights all around them as they slowly swim. They sleep on the sand and wake up to glowing bright sunlight.

  “More drivin’, Ron?” Twig chirpily asks.

  “One more day, I think. Today we’ll find our boat.”

  They both ignore the new colour of the Kingswood and travel on.

  In the afternoon they stop at a beach in the Daintree, where for the first time since leaving, Ron feels safe. There’s an old yacht, bedraggled but not destroyed, perched perilously on the shore. Ron explores it and declares, “It’s ours.”

  TWIG CAN’T REMEMBER how many nights they stayed on the beach with the boat, Atlas, Ron called it, but it was at least four, maybe even ten. Ron worked slowly ’cause he didn’t know how to fix a boat or even sail one. He worked all day, and Twig found coconuts and mangoes and one night Ron cooked a lizard but Twig wouldn’t eat any, and cried while he was cooking it. The lizard looked sad and yuck.

  THEY SAILED THE BOAT a few times and Ron seemed to figure out how to do it by just looking, and Twig thought she probably did have a Very Smart Father. Ron said they would leave soon, maybe a week.

  Ron dreamt of the Moment, of losing Suze, somehow, in all the clamour, dreamt of it slowly, in black and white. Ron felt sorry for Twig, but knew they had to get away from this country, that looking for Suze was pointless. It’s poisoned, the whole place is poisoned now, he could see it, everything is beginning to wilt.

  He feels the car before he sees it, gathers Twig and runs to Atlas. He dumps her in there as a glint of metal from the corner of the road catches his eye. Twig turns on the motor, and starts the winch pulling up the anchor, like Ron taught her, and Ron is pushing her out—the car is now directly behind Ron, he has a hold of the rope but Atlas is floating back to shore—three men in orange overalls, and gas masks, come toward him. He drops the rope, pushes the boat fervently, feeling his side twitch with pain, then walks to the beach, and surrenders.

  They run across the white sand and tackle him, where he crumples.

  Twig, in her little boat, moves listlessly this way and that. When she turns back to look, the whole country is burning.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR: ALBY Grace is a writer from the Adelaide Hills, in South Australia. He teaches writing, spends as much time as he can with his daughter and his first screenplay has been recently made into a feature film ‘Awoken’, soon to hit Australian cinemas.

  Words from the Future by Eva Leppard

  WELL YOU’VE FOUND IT.

  I’m relieved, I must say. This being a major part of my life’s work, and all that. The whole project ended up being more convoluted than I originally planned, but as long as this journal is in your hands (it looks a little odd, right? I’ll explain that later, don’t worry) then everything has gone as planned.

  I’m counting that as a win.

  Where to start? You must be wondering what you got yourself into. This is a happy message, a story of hope, I promise. It’s just that it didn’t start out that way, and when I remember back to what my life was like—what the world was like—well, I feel your pain.

  Trust me.

  It’s the old story. Thrown out of home. Dropped out of school. Met a guy. And all the stuff that comes after. You know how it is. Don’t feel sorry for me, though, I didn’t have it that bad. It was just some stupid decisions mixed with some bad luck. But show me any teenager who makes good decisions and I’ll show you a kid who never tries to push the boundaries.

  I was always a kid who pushed the boundaries.

  I was super happy when I beat the sixteen­-year­­-olds to get the job at Maccas, though, given I was twenty-one by the time I decided that I needed to start earning my keep. It was a job, and it didn’t pay the rent but I couldn’t find a rental anyway so it didn’t matter, did it? Couch surfing was fine, and it wasn’t like I was the only one doing it. No one could find a damn house or a r
ental anywhere once the 2010s started, and as they progressed it got harder. I remember. I was there.

  I don’t miss that, I can tell you. I miss some things; I miss Netflix. I miss flying in planes. But I don’t miss the rental market.

  Anyway, I’m off message again and you’re really going to wonder more than ever what you’ve found, aren’t you? I mean, I know that you’ve found the journal because I’ve put it under the floorboards of an old fixer-upper that gets renovated in 2030, and I know it gets lovingly transformed by hand; no wrecking balls and scorched earth policy here! So I know that this journal will survive intact, and that you will find it, and hey presto a voice from the future!

  Are you confused? I’m sorry, I’ve probably confused you. You will forgive me if I’m not that great at linear descriptions, given what has happened to me. A straight line of cause and effect isn’t something that sits well with me, now that I know that it’s, well, it’s all bunk, isn’t it?

  Time, that is. Linear time. Time isn’t before, now, and after, despite what we’ve been taught. It’s all over the shop. Seriously, there’s no rhyme or reason. You just have to know how to bend it. Flex it. Manipulate it.

  Of course, it was the old guy who came through the drive through at about 11pm on a Friday night that started it all. He had an old car, that’s why I first noticed him. Old in a good way, not old like a Cortina; a classic old, beautifully restored 1930 Ford Ute. Have you ever seen one of them in the wild? I certainly never had. Looked like it had just come off the showroom floor (because it had, of course). Anyway, it came through drive through and the guy ordered something (I don’t even remember what it was, to be honest), but what he was wearing was also worth noting. Black suit, black coat, old fashioned hat, sunglasses. He looked like something out of the 1950s.