Excerpt || Number 3 Raw Place Agog! Smashing Stories, Agog! Press, Cat Sparks ed., 2004
Published The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy #1(September 2005), Bill Congreve & Michelle Marquardt eds., 2005
Ditmar Award Best Short Story shortlist
Honourable Mention Years Best Fantasy & Horror 18, ed. Ellen Datlow et al., 2005 "It's new," Ted apologised. The bank clerk stared flatly ahead. "Never heard of it," she said. Seated behind perspex, she was blurred around the edges like a crayon drawing. "Maybe because we're the first to move in?" Ted suggested. The clerk didn't care. She pushed a thin piece of paper under the perspex and it came out sharp. Clean and white; not blurred at all. He was surprised. "Should I fill this in?" he asked. He smiled, encouraging her to smile back. She didn't. Only kept staring; the thick lines of her eyes unmoving. Ted wondered if he should take the form to a bench, or fill it in right there. Did she have to witness his signature, after all? He looked around to see what others were doing, but there was no else. So he wrote where he was, using a pen on a string that was too short. He wrote with his hand all cramped up. Then he slid the form back under the security screen and watched its edges blur. Like handing it to a deep sea diver; perspective skewing where the water began. The woman took the form with soaking fingers and held it in front of her face. She seemed to read it okay. "Ten working days," she said, and filed it away. Ted nodded, and returned to the house.
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