The Best Australian Stories 2014 by Amanda Lohrey

Black Mary, black like the man who didn’t build your woodpile well enough, the man described as a ‘stray blackfellow’ as if he were a dog and yet also ‘the last of his tribe and a king’. How do you know he was a king? Did he sport one of those half-moon copper or brass king plates like ‘King Billy, king of the Barwon Blacks’ or ‘King Mickey Johnson’, crowned at Wollongong, 30 January 1896? Am I a King Brown in the same way? In some sense I’m a king. Or queen. I belong here. I’ve been here for twenty million years.
    Every spring your ABC reports that I and my cousins will be out and about, so watch out! You could try leaving me alone. I will show many signs of distress before I bite. I may whip my tail like a Rattlesnake. If you don’t walk away then, I’ll show you how big I am, flattening my head. If you still don’t get my message, I’ll raise the first part of my body from the ground and feint at you, practising mock strikes. Could speech be clearer than the language of my body? My first strike will just be bluffing you. Then I’ll put my head down, looking at you with both eyes, measuring the distance for my strike. Even now you can walk away and be safe.
    I glide out from the wall. If I can just reach the other side of this kitchen I will flee into the grey dawn, the heat from the fire giving me strength for just long enough to get away.
    This time the story will have a happy ending. This time, I’ll escape.
    That devil of a dog stirs. I’ve made no noise, how is it possible he’s awake? His growl wakes you and you grab your stick. One metre, two metres.
    This time, freedom is so close. Maybe this time it will be different.
    Snakes are guardians. If you can’t understand me, you can’t understand anything here. It is your fear, not I, that keeps you on the outside. If it had not been me, it would have been something else and perhaps finally the terror of the empty sky that drove you mad.
    The dog springs, his jaws closing on my back.
    You should have understood.
    Perhaps on another day there will be another story.
    Griffith REVIEW

Blue People
    Adam Narnst
    I’m back working with Dragon-Lady after we both went overseas, again, and changed companies, again, came back to hospitality, again, and accidentally landed in the same shithole, again. We all go to our death, some walk, some run, some dance and some ride motorbikes.
    â€˜I see the bulls didn’t get you in Pamplona.’
    â€˜No way. I was on a rooftop watching them, too drunk to walk, let alone run.’
    â€˜At least you didn’t let sunny Spain brighten your outlook too much. It makes me happy.’
    â€˜I’m here, aren’t I?’
    â€˜Here as the ninth letter of the alphabet.’
    â€˜Fuckin’ writers. I read somewhere a lot of writers kill themselves. When are you going to do it?’
    â€˜God knows. I’m not even finished my book yet. Any ideas?’
    â€˜Maybe when you wake up and realise your God isn’t real.’
    â€˜Chuck Palahniuk said, “All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring.”’
    She shakes her head and flicks the ciggy butt into the car park. ‘Ughh, I don’t know why I even talk to you.’
    â€˜Because we work together.’ I smile.
    This time we have to pretend we don’t know each other because Mikey the manager is such a jealous shit he won’t let us talk if he knows we’re friends. The bar we work in is generic. Lots of beer, lots of red, lots of white, lots of basics, plenty of cheap bistro food and lots of reasons to go and ‘have a poke’ in the meantime. On the walls are political agendas that no one seems to notice. Government warnings about problem gambling, problem drinking, problem smoking, plastered on posters in toilets competing with the club’s propaganda – footy-playing kids who stare out from under worried frowns