This story of mine just published by Suddenly and Without Warning.
Author: Doug Jacquier
At the end of the word
This piece of mine has just been published by The Aesthete https://theaesthete.blog/the-aesthete-issues/ (begins p. 22)
The man had sensed the teenage boy was out there, even before the dog smelled him and hunted him into the clearing, nipping at his heels.
‘Call your bloody dog off!’ the boy snapped.
The man looked at the dog and it sloped off to drink water from a tin bowl.
‘You oughta have him chained up.’
The man turned his back on the boy and went to sit in the old armchair under the lean-to veranda. He took a sip of tea from his enamel mug, picked up a book, opened at it the page marked by a feather and began to read.
‘Can I have something to drink?’
The man didn’t look up but nodded in the direction of the rainwater tank. A tin mug dangled from a rusty chain on the tap.
‘Jesus, mate, I’m not that desperate. What about a coffee?’
The man continued to read.
The boy began to walk towards the house. The dog moved into his path, with its lip curled and emanating a guttural sound. The boy groaned before moving towards the tank.
When he’d finished, he sat on a tree stump and looked around the clearing. Apart from the small house, there was a chook run, a veg patch enclosed by chicken wire, and an outhouse.
At dusk, the man put down his book and entered the house, leaving the door open. Shortly after, a light appeared in the window and wispy smoke began to emerge from the chimney.
The boy ventured as close as the dog would allow him and called out ‘Any chance of a feed?’
Just before dark, the man appeared, dropped a blanket on the armchair and put a plate of steaming stew, with a spoon sticking out of it, on the veranda floor. The dog emerged and settled on a pile of hessian bags between the chair and the door. The man returned inside and the light was extinguished.
The dog allowed the boy to pick up the plate and sit in the chair to eat. After eating, the boy stared briefly into the total darkness. He closed his eyes and wrapped the blanket tightly around his thin frame.
…
The boy woke to the sound of caroling magpies and a Police vehicle navigating its way up the twisting track to his house. The man pointed to the bush and the boy took off.
When the Police officer arrived he produced a photo and showed it to the man. ‘Recognise this lad?’ The man’s face remained immobile.
The officer shook his head and said ‘You bloody locals wouldn’t tell me even if you had.’ He climbed into his vehicle but before he drove off he said through the open window, ‘We think he could be dangerous.’
After the officer left, the man returned to his armchair on the veranda, picked up his book and apart from turning the pages, he and his dog sat perfectly still. They knew the boy would not come back.
The Birds
by Doug Jacquier
This 100-word piece has been shortlisted for the 2024 100-word tale competition run by Wilson’s Tales in the UK.
My avian emporium is called The Birds (so sue me, Alfred).
One day, a preening peacock of the human variety entered my shop, looked askance at my various winged wonders and trilled:
‘I had hoped to find feathered treasure but, alas, I feel let down. Nevertheless, I will take that vaguely presentable kookaburra to give my friends a laugh.’
‘$500, cage included.’
‘$200 is my best and final offer.’
Taking my silence as lack of consent, he turned theatrically and made for the door, before pausing and turning.
‘One last chance to change your mind.’
I gave him the bird.
Reflections
This poem of mine has just been published by Synkroniciti
https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/
Image by David Vives from Pixabay
Reflections
For you and for me,
all things seem possible when we look across blue water
from the solid shore.
Peering towards the horizon,
we conspire towards a thousand buoyant courses.
Imagining a receding shore and a rising tide,
we do not weigh our stamina against the undertow
nor the wind strength against our craft;
we have enough gods
to warrant speculation.
But there are those who stand upon the solid shore
who are already at the end of this world
(and the next)
and our imagined journeys
are their fated drownings.
For them,
as they squint anxiously across the water
imagining a receding shore and a rising tide,
sailing into the blue
seems a truly godless journey.
So they sit watching us,
like hermit crabs,
waiting for us to set out,
assuming we are unlikely to return,
and picturing life inside our empty shells
Two poems
Thanks to The Wave for publishing two of my poems. https://www.kelpjournal.com/post/poetry-two-poems-by-doug-jacquier
Speaking ill of the dead
Vernacular Journal have just published this piece of mine. https://vernacularjournal.com/Speaking-ill-of-the-dead
Geoffrey is without Grace
Just published by Unlikely Stories. https://www.unlikelystories.org/content/geoffrey-is-without-grace
An Old White Man in Asia
My personal essay, ‘An Old White Man in Asia’ has just been published by Pena Magazine in their third issue ‘Feelings Made Flesh’. https://drive.google.com/file/d/11p_yR-auBbGflrUMBtDMQh15gMlyx6LX/view
Does It Have Pockets?
Two of my fiction pieces have just been published by Does It Have Pockets?
https://www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/doug-jacquier
The Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse
This piece has just been published in the ‘Heat’ anthology published by Bar Bar Press. https://a.co/d/bzu8z5X
Three billion vertebrates, including dozens of people, perished in Australia’s ‘Black Summer’ bushfires of 2020. To add to the sense of being forsaken by God, in the middle of that devastation, Corona came to ice the bitterest cake of all.
The Fourth Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Death,
astride his pale green horse,
rode over the hill
bringing Hades with him,
and leaving the ashes of trees and dwellings
in the mouths of dreamers and grafters.
The storm has put out the bushfire but the smell of burnt gumtrees and livestock still hangs in the air. At the relief centre, ash-grey ghost faces atop automaton bodies, straggle in to be recorded as being worthy of pity. Fresh-faced city social workers wait in vain for custom in their caravan with a sign offering ‘COUNSELLING’.
Under a marquee near the community hall, an exhausted fire crew shelter from the steady rain, as 44-gallon drum braziers sizzle on the perimeter. The experienced hands are watching for worrying signs amongst those whose properties have been devastated; too much grog, not enough water, too much toughness, not enough despair.
Several pairs of eyes are on a young farmer who’s lost everything, apart from his family. He’s just returned from shooting his maimed next year’s income, strewn in their singed wool coats and burnt feet across his smoldering land. His eyes are seemingly alert but glazed, his left leg is twitching and he has a tic under his right eye.
The strong go on being strong
but the frail begin to unravel
when the very earth beneath their feet betrays them.
The peat beneath the topsoil remains alight
and as, one by one, the wooden fence posts fall,
the strugglers also start to burn from the feet up.
The rains come, the donations come, the volunteers come but the money to rebuild remains in the charred distance, dependent on the devastated counting and re-counting their losses. Again and again and again, they relive Armageddon on government forms.
Six Crooked Highways 