No one could keep up with the Joneses... They started Christmas promptly at midnight on the first of December with a blaze of lights, light show, music accompaniment, and each year was designed for a different theme... They got solar panels when people grumbled about the electricity grid, and a…
For sweet William. It was dark blue, cobalt, the colour was called something fancy but essentially it was blue... A deep stormy night sky blue that held the promise if years and decades of fun to come... It had sat discarded, almost forgotten hidden under a tarp out the back…
You could hear the giggles all the way up the valley. They snuck under doors, around verandahs, they floated up the small ridges and through the canopied forest. They drifted under the pecans to the farmstead and through the gaps in the Liquid Ambers and Agapanthus. The giggles that came…
The offender sat quietly in her cell. She wasn't a flight risk, the door, in deference to the lack of heating was open, however it didn't stop the severe disappointment of the police officer who brought her in, nor the sigh of resignation that came from the duty officer in…
The kids got the blame for the scorch mark on the desk. It sat near the edge, within their reach, if they were kneeling on the seat and playing on the computer, which they were not meant to do. That’s why when they claimed innocence, no one in the household…
When the car slowly motored up the main street, all of Three Corners' held their breath. It was... Beautiful. Magnificent. A complete package of perfection; in symmetry, colour and trend. The young gentleman who drove, steered with a knowing smile, aware of the attention and basked in the warmth of…
Council Clean-Up Day at Three Corners was a Street Shopper's delight; and Morrie, who lived on the outer rim of the town looked forward to it more than Christmas every year. His house, a 1930's concrete bungalow, was always immaculate; the lawn neatly clipped, the bromeliads flowering, the lavender trim,…
He snuck over to the old shack by the river. Cleared the aluminium cans and chip wrappers from the fireplace grate and started to slowly burn the ream of paper he'd brought with him. The air filled suddenly with the snap of a match and the sulphuric acrid after smell…
At first he thought it was an apparition…. Then a late night hallucination, brought on by too much work, stress and lack of sleep… but after the third night he realised that what was happening outside was as real as the deadline he was pushing. As real as the domestic…
The installation of a street library started a small war in Three Corners. Quite unintentionally. Declarations were made, lines drawn, friendships that had spent a lifetime in solidarity split asunder, and one marriage ended in divorce. A little cream box, with a blue metal roof that perched precariously on top…