australian fiction
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She thinks for a moment; not about the stew but about the story that he’s started. “So he’s dapper,” she says, and he frowns. “He wears office clothes then,” she says, and he nods. “And he comes in to the shop every day, almost, after work, at four o’clock, or just after, and he…
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The kitchen clock stands on top of the fridge, leaning against a dented tea-tin filled with loose change. Julie becomes aware of its patient ticking. She has asked Ali, many times, to hang it on the wall. She’s indicated the space she has in mind, over the door to the living room, but he hasn’t…
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Ali says: “He started coming in a few weeks ago, and after a few days I assumed he was going to be a regular customer, and that he was going to buy the same thing every time. We smile at each other, and he tells me about simple things, like the weather.” This is reminding…
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Steven was regarding his reflection in a battered old mirror which was fixed on the wall in the corner of the shop. He was holding an old rolling-tobacco tin filled with tarnished keys, and not so much feigning interest in the tin and its contents, but using them as props, to allow himself this opportunity…
Barry Lee Thompson 