HEY GUYS: Here's an example of my short fiction (with a twist) that's available for free at:
http://freequickreads.blogspot.com.au/
The Other One
by Christina Larmer
My sister has always been more beautiful than me and I don't understand why. We're identical twins. We're supposed to look the same. But for some reason, men are more attracted to Kara. Hell, everyone's more attracted to her: old women, little kids, even the dog next door gallops across, tail wagging a million miles a minute when Kara comes around. He offers me not so much as a sniff, and it bugs me. Or, at least it did until last week, when Kara turned up dead.
They say a handsome young man found her body. Of course. He alerted the police, they called in the fire brigade who in turn called in the search and rescue squad. She was hard to get to, stuck in a tree, halfway down a cliff. Just dangling there, like a dead pig in a butcher's window. For all to see.
The irony of it hit me. Kara was always eager to be seen and death did not let her down. Of course if you spent as much time on yourself as Kara did, you'd probably be noticed, too. She always knew what to wear, how to do her hair. Subtle make-up, sexy shoes. I gather she spent all she earned at that glamorous PR job on her shoes. I've got them all now, of course, but they aren't taking me where I thought they would.
I'm thrifty. A mad saver, really. And not at all into fashion or lipstick or highlights in the hair. The 'plain one', I hear them say, sympathy edging out the disdain. They don't compare themselves to her, of course. Just me. Her other half.
I'm an accountant. Wealthier, wiser, lonelier. Had a boyfriend once. Until he met her. Of course Kara would not be tempted by someone so dull, but she might as well have. He was as good as gone after that; sex occasionally, the fire extinguished from his eyes. Unless he was thinking of her. I knew when that was because he was excited, animated, fervent. Alive. That's when I would slip off midway and leave him there, dangling.
Dangling. It's a funny word, isn't it? Ugly. Humiliating. Out of control.
Kara was never normally out of the control. She spoke well, she made friends easily, she drank just enough, never put on weight. She was School Captain and University President. She had been in love, but she never fell there like the rest of us. She sauntered up instead, opening the door to it, offering it a seat. And she always left them, a few expected tears, and happiness again.
"I love being single," she told me once. "I love being on my own." I'd noticed. Apart from our nine months wedged together early in the piece, we'd never been close. I laugh at the thought of poor, beautiful Kara stuck in the slimy environs of my mother's womb, her limbs entangled with mine, unable to get away.
Last week she got away from me. For good. She was pushed from a cliff. Then she really was all alone. And now in death as she lies rotting beneath the soil, she rests all alone. Except for the constant visitors of course. Mum can't bring herself to leave Kara's grave. Has practically set up a camp site. Old boyfriends have driven miles to pay their last respects, weeping over her marble plaque, leaving perfectly healthy roses to wilt without water and die. And I watch this all from a distance, disbelieving and distraught. I'm still here, guys! The other one. Give me a second of your time, hand the flowers to me.
One man has started paying me attention, though. A policeman by the name of Jones. Talks to me a lot, asks all sorts of questions, mostly about me. He discovers that I did it. He locks me up for life and throws away the key.
It's not so lonely in here. I have a room-mate called Sharon, and she's not going anywhere.
ends:
Read my latest short story at: http://freequickreads.blogspot.com
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The end of your career
How's your career going? Soaring ahead, plodding along or stalled like an old bomb with a overheated radiator? Sadly, mine is the latter, and I have no one but myself to blame.
It's hard to keep working away when your heart is simply not in it. It's even harder for others to give you work when they can sense that very despondency, and you can't blame them. Not really. I've been a journalist for 24 years. I've edited magazines and run international bureaus. I've interviewed A-list celebrities and clueless psychologists. I've struggled through a move up north and the birth of two children, a time when keeping employers interested has been almost as challenging as the births themselves. You sort of drop off the planet when you have a baby, and often through no fault of your own. Employers (editors) just assume you're not available. Perhaps they're being kind, giving you some time out to bond with bub, but you want the work. Hell, you need the work if you're going to pay the mortgage and keep the bub in nappies. So you end up having to work even harder to get back on their books.
But you do. You crawl back in, you dazzle them with your ideas—menus and menus of tantalising feature story ideas— and the work pours in again. All is right with the world. But deep down you are bored, and you are not happy.
And so, slowly, almost without you even knowing, you start to falter. You've been doing this gig for so long, you have simply lost your spark. And with that loss of spark comes a loss of passion and of brilliance. You start sending mediocre story ideas, not because you can't think of any great ones, but because you actually don't want to write them. You don't want any work. You tell yourself you do. You know very well that you need it. But you are over it. And so your ideas and your performance reflect that. And editors see that. And so they give you what your subconscious wants—less work.
Eventually it turns into a trickle and then a drought. You get a wake-up call - usually after perusing your bank statements— and you snap yourself out of it. You find that spark, send in some better story ideas, get a little work again.
But a few months down the track the pattern resumes and the work dries up again.
Eventually those confused editors don't even bother responding to your emails. And why would they? You're unpredictable. They're not even sure you're keen. And so you have finally achieved what you really want. An end to your career.
And so the empty bank balance glares at you. How on earth will you fill it now?
It's hard to keep working away when your heart is simply not in it. It's even harder for others to give you work when they can sense that very despondency, and you can't blame them. Not really. I've been a journalist for 24 years. I've edited magazines and run international bureaus. I've interviewed A-list celebrities and clueless psychologists. I've struggled through a move up north and the birth of two children, a time when keeping employers interested has been almost as challenging as the births themselves. You sort of drop off the planet when you have a baby, and often through no fault of your own. Employers (editors) just assume you're not available. Perhaps they're being kind, giving you some time out to bond with bub, but you want the work. Hell, you need the work if you're going to pay the mortgage and keep the bub in nappies. So you end up having to work even harder to get back on their books.
But you do. You crawl back in, you dazzle them with your ideas—menus and menus of tantalising feature story ideas— and the work pours in again. All is right with the world. But deep down you are bored, and you are not happy.
And so, slowly, almost without you even knowing, you start to falter. You've been doing this gig for so long, you have simply lost your spark. And with that loss of spark comes a loss of passion and of brilliance. You start sending mediocre story ideas, not because you can't think of any great ones, but because you actually don't want to write them. You don't want any work. You tell yourself you do. You know very well that you need it. But you are over it. And so your ideas and your performance reflect that. And editors see that. And so they give you what your subconscious wants—less work.
Eventually it turns into a trickle and then a drought. You get a wake-up call - usually after perusing your bank statements— and you snap yourself out of it. You find that spark, send in some better story ideas, get a little work again.
But a few months down the track the pattern resumes and the work dries up again.
Eventually those confused editors don't even bother responding to your emails. And why would they? You're unpredictable. They're not even sure you're keen. And so you have finally achieved what you really want. An end to your career.
And so the empty bank balance glares at you. How on earth will you fill it now?
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