M'aidez

In my continuing and, might I say, futile attempts to get my fiction published, I joined a small writers collective a couple of years ago. The group, Crime Writers Queensland, publishes its own books and audio tapes which are collections of short stories by members. Almost all the members are published authors, some with quite a good local reputation. I'm hoping to get a story in their new collection. It will be their seventh book and will be called 'Seven'. The book launch is planned for 7/7/07. Lucky? We all hope so.

Anyhoo, to follow up the enormous success of the poem I published yesterday, here's a very short story. We do these from time to time as an exercise. The story has to be precisely 100 words long and the theme is set at the meetings. I quite liked this one, so I'm goimg to inflict it on you. Just because I can...


The orbital bombardment was over and the shock troops had already gone in. We would be next. I nudged Dannee who’d been sitting beside me since we left Deepstation, fiddling with that stupid little radio of his. “I hate this bloody waiting,” I growled.

“Listen.” He handed me the earpiece. “It’s from down there.”

I glanced out at the scarred planet below and listened. The lilting, musical language meant nothing to me but two sounds kept repeating among the gabble: “mae dae”.

Dannee said it must mean “Fuck off aliens”.

My stomachs lurched as we tipped into our approach run.