The criteria for the most recent Furious Fiction – April 2021 – were as follow:

1. Your story must begin in some kind of queue.
2. Your story must include the words CROSS, DROP and LUCKY.
3. Your story must include a map.

It is a relatively straight forward set of conditions that lends itself to an abundance of scenarios.

Most of the time with these things, I start writing a story based on an idea that has randomly popped into my head,an idea that is completely independent of the criteria put in place by the Australian Writers’ Centre – the organisation that hosts the Furious Fiction competition – and this time was no exception. In fact, the only difference between this submission and my previous attempts was that, having missed the previous month’s competition, I decided to write two stories.

The one you are about to read, if you haven’t been turned off by this introduction, is the first draft of the second story. It cam in a little long at almost 700 words, and I have intentionally shared this version first because I want to gauge people’s reactions and maybe get some feedback on what other people, creatives and non-creatives alike, would remove in order to get it don to 500 words.

So, let us know what you think and in the coming days I will share the other short story I wrote this month, the one I didn’t enter. I might even share the submitted version of this story, as a point of comparison.

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“If you run away, you can go anywhere, be anyone,” she told me as we followed the lead of the couple in front of us and inched closer to the entrance to the restaurant.

It was a pleasant evening, and the line wasn’t all that long, though we still weren’t guaranteed entry.

“That’d be nice,” I replied after a beat, my mind partially focussed on wondering whether we would be lucky enough to get a table.

“You don’t think so?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“I think it might be a bit more complicated than that.”

“Complicated how?”

I thought about this for a moment. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have right now, but it looked like we were having it anyway, and there wasn’t much I could do about it without appearing rude. A lot of our conversations went this way.

“Maybe complicated isn’t the right word. Maybe I meant difficult? I think it might be a bit more difficult than that.”

“Difficult how?

I knew with 100% certainty that this would be the next thing she asked. To be honest, it is probably what I would have asked, had I been in her position and her in mine. Yet despite knowing that this was what she would ask, I did not have an answer prepared. Instead, I just smiled at her, the kind of smile that we both knew lacked sincerity.

“Are you going to have a stall at the market this week?” I asked attempting to avoid pursuing this topic any further.

This was another hallmark of our conversations, whenever things got uncomfortable, for whatever reason, the person in the most discomfort would change the subject and nine time out of ten the other person would go along with it as though it was a perfectly normal thins to do.

“I was thinking about it, but I don’t know if I’ll be organised in time,” she replied, “And don’t try to change the subject.”

We took another step forward and watched as a group of four people a couple of metres in front of us haggled with the Maître d’. I wasn’t sure where to take the conversation.

“If you want me to drop it, then tell me to drop it,” she replied, “I thought this would be an interesting thought exercise, but don’t want you to be in one of your moods tonight.”

It was a little too late, we were both already in a bit of a mood, but not so far gone that we couldn’t still salvage the evening. I decided to do the mature thing and fully engage her.

“Okay then, “I started, “the first thing I would need is a map.”

“A map?”

“Yeah, you can’t run away without a map,“ I replied with a cheeky smile.

I could sense that she sensed the change in my demeanour. It was one of those things that you pick-up quite naturally over the course of a marriage.

“I can make you a map,”

We had reached the front of the queue and it was our turn to haggle with the front-of-house.

“Do you have a reservation?” he asked.

She looked at me with a gleam in her eye.

“Of course,” my wife replied, before immediately falling into a heap at the host’s feet.

While he bent down to see if she was okay, I took the opportunity to lean over and scan the reservations book for an appropriate pair of names.

“Are you okay madame?” he asked as he helped her to her feet.

“I’m fine,” she replied, “The only thing that is hurt is my pride.”

I half expected her to throw an exaggerated wink my way.

“You’ll do anything for attention, won’t you darling?”

“Where were we? Oh yes, the reservation,” she said, ignoring my slight.

“Oh yes,” I said turning to the Maître d’, “Mr. and Mrs. Cross. Thank you.”

James Farish-Carradice