I do enjoy creating a max. 500-word story each month for the Furious Fiction competition from the Australian Writers’ Centre. I warm to the themes and criteria they choose, and look forward to spending what I can of the weekend (because that’s all they allow) being as imaginative as I can.

Here were the rules for this month:

• Each story had to strongly feature a relationship between TWO characters. 
• Each story had to include someone whispering.
• Each story had to include the words JAR, UNIFORM, NEEDLE and EDGE. (Certain variations were allowed)

I decided to take a dull story and polish it to a shine. I did that by adding something new to the ending and greatly exaggerating something in the middle, but otherwise only by the way I wrote it.

My story wasn’t featured, but the fact that it was longlisted is, I think, a testament to the fact that a lot of what makes a story stand out lies simply in the writing. I could probably have improved my story, and maybe it could have been featured.

Here it is:

A Bedtime If Story

If this were pure fantasy, you’d say the numbers were unrealistic. But it’s true; their relationship lasted for fifty years, from age twenty to age seventy.

If this were pure fantasy, you’d say it needs more conflict. But it’s true; there really wasn’t much, or at least nothing worth mentioning.

If this were pure fantasy, you’d say it needs detail. I can provide that. I can talk of raising children, of delightful trips to near and far places, of long walks in various natural and unnatural settings, of together visits to museums, castles, plays, musicals, concerts, weddings, friends. I can mention how he fixed things in the house while she sewed buttons on his uniform and other clothes. How, in later years, it became increasingly difficult to thread the needle, a fact she never mentioned. How they quickly learned to avoid friction by avoiding topics because staying together was much more important, and maybe that’s why no significant conflict appears in this story.

If this were pure fantasy, you’d say the relationship is still too smooth, even though cracks are starting to appear. You’d say it jars with anything you’ve ever heard. That if you’d been sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for the climax, you’d have fallen off it by now as sleep conquered your senses.

If this were pure fantasy, you’d have given up on the story by now. You’d have expected the end to be an accident in which they died together holding hands. Or a long, drawn-out illness, one partner caring for the other with love and tenderness. In reality, long and drawn-out was expected. Both feared that outcome. He didn’t relish the prospect of becoming gradually incapacitated; she wondered about her caring abilities, in particular about whether she possessed any. Pure fantasy would have put those fears to the test. Reality followed a shorter and easier trajectory. He fell and hit his head. No one knew why he fell.

While you suppress another yawn, I’ll leave you with a fact to dwell on. If I let you into a secret and whispered their names, tossing and turning would be the outcome. In fact, even if I didn’t…