The Furphy Literary Award 2025: ‘The Grim Gripper’ by Dips O’Donnell

 

 

 

 

 

Damian ‘Dips’ O’Donnell has been writing for The Footy Almanac since the website first started.

This story was short-listed for the 2025 Furphy Literary Award. It will be part of The Furphy Anthology 2025 which will be published in November, 2025.

 

 

 

The Grim Gripper

Damian O’Donnell

 

Helium spews forth as the sun splutters and coughs and electromagnetic radiation storms across the galaxy in a manically bright nuclear fusion, then suddenly retreats to a sickly brown as if the Gods are fiddling with a heavenly dimmer switch. For a few moments, the Earth boils at seventy degrees Celsius, then in a blink it plummets to minus forty and a blackness drops and it disappears, no longer the blue planet, but a black, dead planet, floating in space, a speck of dirt in a celestial lake.

Barry and Thommo are grateful to be inside. Luck’s a fortune.

The frigid darkness has been lingering for forty-five or fifty minutes and the blazing sun storms are cruel and pitiless. The planet’s trees catch fire and burn wildly before snap freezing when the icy gloom descends. This astronomical mayhem came completely out of the blue last Thursday. Scientists hardly had time to scratch their frontal lobes before the lights went out. Ultimately, when the sun implodes, the end will be quick. The planetary nebula will consume Mercury and Venus, and Earth will be a crumbling, ashen rock.

Barry is perched on a bar stool. He holds a stubby of beer in his left hand. His right hand is gesticulating as he makes a point about the state of things with Thommo. His voice is raised but not agitated. He is the resident oracle, a self-made man who’s conjured up a quid building sites and tinkering his whole life. He reads too. He can discuss wormholes and growing tomatoes with equal authority.

‘So, what ’appens is that the sun is full of hydrogen, right? Which fuses under massive pressure and becomes helium.’

‘Wad’s helium?’ Thommo asks.

‘Oh, I dunno. It’s a gas. You know, the stuff they put in kids’ balloons to make them float.’

‘Righto. Gotcha,’ Thommo says, slurring and leaning forward unsteadily but intently.

‘So, helium for the sun is like petrol for a car. It burns it up. Supposedly over billions of years. But those wacko scientists said, “Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be fine. The helium will last another four billion years. Nothin’ to see here.” Dickheads.’

‘Yeah, dickheads.’ Thommo nods like his head is loose in its fittings. He’d probably nod in agreement with his own execution. He’s a bloke who lives in a constant state of fluctuating melancholy. The good days are bad because they can only get worse, and his bad days are good because they might improve. He never recovered equilibrium after his wife eloped with the local pet shop owner. That happened in 1979.

Outside the stunning blinding light has dimmed to a charcoal grey. Then deep black. The punters in the pub peer out through sooty windows and see dirty snow falling and wind gusts that blow trees from their leaves. The front swinging doors to the pub clatter and shake and the lock threatens to give way as the storm screams and hurls litter and fiery embers into the confused atmosphere.

‘Here we go,’ Barry says, eyeing off the shaking front doors. ‘Here we go.’

Thommo nods some more.

‘Yep. Hic!!’

Other folk in the pub gaze nervously, drawn to the profound and mysterious darkness that lingers like a soul thief. The cold will be the killer. The cutting wind is smiting wild animals. They freeze where they stand.

Barry and Thommo are lucky. Their weekly routine of arriving at two-thirty every Thursday afternoon to do their footy tipping has saved their skins. For now, anyway. The pub is warm when the heavy blanket of cold drops upon all else. The fire is lively and crackles away like a reassuring laugh from your grandmother.

Mal, the publican, reckons he has enough beer to last a few days. And enough wood in the back shed to last just as long. Straws are drawn to decide who makes the perilous twenty-metre dash to the shed and back for the wood. Last time it was Jamie. He didn’t make it.

‘Strewth,’ Cockeye said as they peered through the back window, witnessing Jamie’s return trip. The sun rose up and heaved a fuming, radiated solar flare that hit Earth and cooked poor old Jamie just next to the bike racks. The wood in his arms was the fuel that roasted him, then the stinging cold froze him solid. No one was sure if he’d fried or frozen.

Mal is relieved that even without power he can keep the beer cold. It’s stacked up outside the back door to the kitchen but still undercover. While the sun flares are a worry, the black winter hours chill the beer slabs almost to freezing point. He’s determined to give the punters what they want in their last days or hours, whatever it turns out to be. He wanders around the bar refilling porcelain bowls with salted peanuts.

Outside they see the new world. The old one has been annihilated. Abandoned cars are strewn about in the streets, and the supermarket across the road has been looted and the shops pillaged. A sign in a shattered window flaps in the harsh winds: ‘Beans just $6.90 per kilo!’

The kids’ playground is eerily twisted with swing chains frozen on a forty-five-degree angle. There are dead bodies slumped on park benches, charred forms frozen in situ, macabre street art without an audience. Some are sprawled in the gutters or glued on the seats at the bus stop, waiting for the three-oh-eight to arrive. One bloke is dead at the front door of the pub, his frozen hand wrapped around the brass doorknob. He almost made it. They already have a name for him – The Grim Gripper.

They heard him coming. Staggering through the rubbish in the streets until he collapsed against the door.

‘Let me in!’ he was screaming. ‘Ya gotta let me in!’

‘Hang on,’ Mal yelled. ‘Hang on, it’s locked. I’m coming.’

But by the time Mal got there and opened the door the poor bloke was a cadaver. He’d taken Mal’s advice to ‘hang on’ quite literally, because Mal couldn’t undo his grasp on the doorknob. The frozen hand had melded itself to the brass, vice-like.

‘Leave ’im there,’ Barry called out. ‘He won’t hurt.’

‘Can’t undo his grip on the door,’ Mal said. ‘It’s like he’s glued to it. Pretty grim.’

‘The Grim Gripper! Ha! Poor old Gripper.’

‘Yep. Hic!’ Thommo said, patting his chest to get rid of his hiccups.

That was ten minutes ago.

‘Beer?’

‘Umm, well …’ Thommo is slipping lower and lower on the bar stool.

‘Why not?’ Barry asks, ‘You going somewhere? Ha!’ He walks around the bar and grabs two more stubbies from a plastic tub. No need for money anymore. Mal, a man of habit, wipes the bar.

‘Wad I dun get, what I cun work out,’ Thommo slurs, ‘is what ’appens now? I mean to say, wad is goin’ to ’appen?

Barry nurses his fresh stubby in both hands like it’s a new footy and stares straight ahead. He studies the label then begins peeling it off. Top-left corner first. Halfway down the label tears.

‘Bugger,’ Barry says. ‘I’ve never been able to tear one of these off in one piece. Never!’

‘Still gotta a day or two’ Thommo quips, smirking.

‘What ’appens now you ask, mate? Well, the inside of the sun expands as it cools, because all the helium is gone, which forces a whole lotta crap from the surface out into space. Like debris. Then it implodes, I think? Like, falls back into itself. Sorta like a bloke on a building site who’s falling backwards off a ladder, but over-corrects, and ends up falling forward off the ladder. When that ’appens we’re stuffed.’

‘Right!’ Thommo says, trying to picture the builder’s gymnastics.

‘They reckon that implosion process will take a few seconds. Yeah right! They got the sun’s lifespan totally wrong. Don’t believe a word of it. Dickheads.’

‘How long ya reckon?’ Thommo asks, ‘For the implode thingy? How long will that take?’

Barry looks at the ceiling as if it’s a giant cheat sheet with all the answers.

‘Hmmm,’ he says, ‘I reckon about eight or nine days.’

‘Crikey.’

‘Just my gut feel.’

They sit in silence for a few moments, both examining their stubbies. Barry’s grabbed a fresh one and is peeling another label. It tears again, almost in the same spot as the previous one.

The windows rattle and the floor shakes. Everyone stops their thinking and drinking and looks up, wide eyes, open mouths, as if posing for a group photo. The light in the ceiling gently swings from side to side.

‘Earthquake? Hey Mal, I can’t ever remember an earthquake in these parts?’

‘Nup,’ Mal says, still wiping the bar. ‘First one, I reckon.’

Now the doors have joined in with the windows and the floor. The joint’s rocking.

‘All we need is some music!’ Barry says. ‘Ha!’

The earthquake ceases, the blackness outside retreats and the sun emerges from the charcoal. The roof creaks in agony. Another solar burst is heading for them. Thommo grabs on to his barstool with both hands, sensing this one could be a doozy. They might all be about to go up in smoke. Heat penetrates the walls – searing, blistering heat breaching the brickwork in its search for human flesh. All eyes are still on the ceiling. Hell must come from above. Then the light fades to grey, then brown, then black. Bottomless black. Cold grips everything. Mal dashes to the back door to check on the beer.

‘Thad one was close,’ Thommo whispers.

‘How could they be four billion years wrong?’ Barry asks. ‘Fair mistake to make. Dickheads.’

Craig has been sitting in the corner minding his own business. He’s a big, fleshy, happy bloke. Played footy as a young man. Could’ve been anything but fell victim to disingenuous flattery and bad, post-midnight decisions. Won the club’s best and fairest five times up the bush where he got paid in cash and beer, then retired with neither. He walks around the bar and helps himself to the beer tub.

‘Whadaya make of all this, boys?’ he asks Barry and Thommo.

Barry and Thommo crane their necks around in unison, like they’re doing a liturgical dance.

‘I feel like that Irish woman,’ Barry says eventually, ‘who says she doesn’t believe in the fairies at the bottom of her garden but she knows they’re there.’

‘Right!’ Craig says, reaching for the peanuts. ‘Whadaya mean?’

‘I mean, I can’t believe what I’m seein’. I don’t believe what I’m seein’ but I know I’m seein’ it. You? Whada you reckon?’

‘I sorta like the certainty of it all,’ Craig says, chewing. He tips his head back and allows a few more nuts to fall in. ‘I mean, if we’re a goner I’d rather know. There’s no delusion anymore. No opinions. No one has to study it. It’s just happenin’.’

‘Yeah, see ya point.’

‘Funny how things turn out isn’t it? We’ve had thousands of years of gettin’ better, smarter, bigger and stronger. Now – zap! Bang! Means nothin’. Like the young fella who could do a Rubix’s Cube in, what was it? Three seconds? He must’ve practiced for hours. Hours and hours. For what? What a waste. He’s probably dead now. Frozen in ’is armchair. Think he lived in Slovenia.’

Craig leans back on the barstool. He sips his stubby and grabs more nuts. A moment of contemplation fills the room. It hangs heavily. The flames of the fire dance and crack.

Mavis is sitting at one of the small tables, legs crossed, leaning over the crossword. Her glasses are perched on the end of her nose and she lifts her eyebrows every so often to look over the top of them, like a thief peering in a lounge-room window. One hand is wrapped around the stem of the wine glass clasping her Pinot Gris. She comes here every day for a glass and to do the crossword. This is her happy place because home isn’t so happy. Age, illness, dementia. Their impact is pervasive. Her father is a handful. Ninety-six but won’t die. She doesn’t wish he would, but thinks he should.

‘Glad you chaps are talking about this stuff,’ she says. ‘The science stuff. You might know the answer. Eight down. Five letters. Probably starts with Q – “The fundamental constituent of matter”.’

‘Don’t know many words that start with Q,’ Thommo says, ‘’cept Quasimodo.’

Barry seriously ponders the question. Craig pretends to ponder it.

‘Hmmm,’ Barry says. ‘You might have me there, Mave. But don’t give the answer yet! I’m still thinkin’.’

‘Okay,’ Mavis says. ‘While you’re thinking about that one, try this one too. Eighteen across, ten letters. Looks like it starts with D – “A lack of agreement or harmony”.’

‘Disagreement,’ Barry says.

‘That’s twelve letters, Barry, ya dill.’

‘Is the other one “quartz”?’ Barry asks.

‘That’s six letters,’ Mavis says. ‘You blokes are hopeless.’ She giggles to herself and returns to the puzzle.

‘Quark,’ Bob yells from the far end of the bar. ‘The Q one is quark.’

‘Bingo!’ Mavis squeals. ‘That fits. Thanks Bobby. You just need the first one for these puzzles, then you’re away.’

Bobby nods and returns to his thoughts.

‘We’re outta wood,’ Mal says. ‘You’re up, Cockeye.’

Cockeye’s head snaps up. Yes, there is fear in his eyes. Cockeye is sixty-odd. He has the physique of a goldfish. His body is not a highly maintained machine. A crook left hip from bowling right-arm wobblers for thirty-one years at his local cricket club means he walks like a buoy in rough seas. He lost his eye to a magpie that swooped him at fourth slip one day. Ended his career but got him a new nickname. A legend of the club. His name’s on a plaque – Edward J Crankston. There are only six legends so Cockeye must have been more than a toiler.

‘If Jamie didn’t make it, I don’t like me chances,’ Cockeye says.

‘Jamie was stiff,’ Mal says. ‘Pardon the pun. You’ll be fine.’

Everyone volunteers extra coats, a beanie and a hoodie for Cockeye to wear to keep the bitter cold at bay. He also pockets a torch. Then he bobs his way down the hall, through the kitchen to the back door.

‘Righto,’ Mal says. ‘There’s the shed, right. Go to the side door, not the front door. That’s the bit Jamie got wrong. Didn’t listen to me. Go to the side door. Just inside is a trolley. Stack the wood in that then drag it back here. Simple. We’ll all be waiting.’

Cockeye grimaces. The cold is already playing havoc with his crook hip. He switches on the torch and flings open the door. Everyone gets blasted by the Antarctic wind as icicles rush inside like they’re glad to get out of the chill.

‘See ya,’ he says and steps out into the blackness.

He disappears. All that’s visible is the wobbling torch light that maps Cockeye’s stumbling trek across the yard. He’s making progress. Expletives are heard when he kicks the old concrete gully trap then the shed door creaks open.

‘You beauty!’ Mal cries.

The wind is angry as light begins to creep into the corners of the murky shadows. Another solar storm is brewing. Cockeye needs to be back before that happens.

‘Come on!’ Barry whispers. ‘Come on, Cocky!’

The sounds of squeaky wheels accompany the approaching pale torch light. He’s on the return trip with the trolley. Hopefully full of wood. He gets closer but is unsteady, like he’s negotiating the Horn of Africa in giant seas. The torch light points at the sky, then the ground, then the sky again, following the rhythm of Cockeye’s bobbing.

‘Looks like he’s riding a kangaroo,’ Barry quips.

A pale face glows through the dimness. Cockeye is a matter of a few metres away. He looks hollow and gaunt. But he’s still going. Then a trolley wheel gets caught around the garden hose and comes to a halt. Cockeye tumbles backwards, and the trolley loses its load.

‘Stuff this,’ Craig says, pulling the back door open and dashing outside. He gets Cockeye under the arms and drags him back towards the pub. They both burst through the door and sprawl onto the floor, panting and wheezing but alive. Barry slams the door behind them. At that moment, the sun gasps back to life and sends a blistering heatwave. The backyard of the pub lights up like a KGB interview room. But Craig and Cockeye are safely undercover.

‘Crikey,’ Cockeye says coughing up his lungs. ‘Crikey! What ’appened?’

‘You left the wood behind,’ Barry chirps drily.

‘Yeah, yeah, I did. Sorry, everyone. Its crazy out there.’

Mal scratches his head. ‘We might have to start burning the bar,’ he says. ‘Getting the wood’s a bit bloody perilous.’

Everyone traipses dejectedly back into the main bar and slumps on their seats. Mal kicks the door off the kitchen pantry, smashes it up with a hammer and throws bits on the fire. It leaps back to life.

‘How long we got, ya think?’ Craig asks all of a sudden, becoming earnest. He throws his head sideways, gesturing outside to the worsening conditions. Everyone is aware the dark snap-winter minutes and the sharp sun storms are getting worse. Nature is closing in.

‘Let’s run a book!’ Barry calls. ‘Nearest the pin. How long we got?’ He laughs out loud at his own genius. ‘Ten bucks, winner takes all.’

‘I’m in,’ Cockeye yells.

‘Me too,’ Mal says.

‘Yep,’ Craig adds.

Bob’s in. Mavis too. Shelly. Dom. Beth. Bruiser equivocates but eventually raids his wallet. Mal grabs an empty peanut bowl and puts the money in. Then he places another empty bowl next to it.

‘Nice pot of dosh,’ he says, eyeing it off.

‘Okay,’ Barry yells, ‘everyone writes down their time on a piece of paper and puts it in the empty bowl next to the money bowl. It’s six pm now. Your best guess when we’re all finally cooked.’

The punters all bend over their bits of paper and write down a time, then they fold the paper and place it in the bowl. When they’re all finished Barry gathers up the papers, unfolds them and begins reading the guesses.

‘Okay, here they are,’ he yells, now standing on the bar. ‘Write these down will ya, Thommo. Barry, that’s me, nine-seventeen tonight. Never go for even numbers! Ha! Thommo – seven-fifteen tonight. Bloody hell Thommo that’s a bit morbid! An hour from now!’

Thommo shrugs and says, ‘The last flash was pretty bad, Bazza,’ defending his position.

‘Mal – one-oh-three tomorrow morning. Like that one, Mal. Beth – ten tonight. Cockeye – eleven am on Tuesdee week! Ha ha ha. You’re a cracker, Cockeye. Craig – midnight tonight. Bob – can’t read ya bloody writing, Bob. What’s that say?’

‘Eight-thirty tonight,’ Bob says quietly.

‘Looks like eight-thirty tongue,’ Barry quips. ‘Ha, ha, ha. Never mind. Mavis – seven am tomorrow. Nice one, Mavis. Shelly – six-fifty pm! Crikey, Shell! Better go to the dunny now. Ha ha! Dom – four am tomorrow. Bruiser – two-fifteen tomorrow morning. Righto. Think that’s everyone. I’ll put it up on the pinboard.’

‘Put The Grim Gripper in it,’ Craig calls.

‘Righto,’ Barry calls. ‘He’ll probably win it!

He clambers down off the bar, walks to the front door, looks around at everyone, then quickly unlocks it and yanks it open. High intensity, frigid air storms in, followed by black snowflakes and grit. The punters shiver. The fire spits in protest. Barry shuffles around urgently in The Grim Gripper’s coat pockets. He knows he only has a few seconds, otherwise he’ll turn to ice. He retrieves the wallet, slams the door and locks it with The Gripper still steadfastly hanging on.

‘Bugger,’ he says rummaging through the wallet. ‘He had no cash. I’ll stump up for him.’ Then he walks back to the bar, climbs onto it again and announces, ‘The Grim Gripper says five am.’

They all applaud and laugh.

‘Outstanding. Whatever happens we’ll all be a lot closer than the idiots who predicted we had another four billion years!’ Barry yells. He just can’t let it go.

More laughter. Beers. Mavis goes to the top shelf and grabs the Glenmorangie. Then the windows begin to shake again.

As time passes, the party descends into a ridiculous dance of defiance. Mal can hardly keep up with restocking the beer tub. The peanuts run out. Various punters drop out of the nearest-the-pin competition.

‘You’re out, Shelly.’ Barry calls just before seven.

‘You’re out, Thommo!’ Barry shouts twenty minutes later.’

‘Gone, Bob!’ he screams at eight-thirty-five.

When Dom is out at four-fifteen in the morning, there are only three left – The Gripper, Mavis, and Cockeye.

Those who are able to stand, because Mal has been burning the chairs. The tables will be next.

‘You can’t burn porcelain bowls,’ Barry says as the furniture goes up in flames.

Bruiser is out to it. Mavis is lying on the floor nurturing her bottle of Glenmorangie. Thommo fell asleep across the bar hours ago.

In an almighty flash of burning light and howling wind the windows shatter. The front door bursts open and The Gripper, still attached to the doorknob, enters the bar, thrown in violently by the storm. The ceiling trembles, dirt and debris swirl around them, but Barry finds the courage to climb back onto the bar. In a Herculean effort, against nature’s wrath, and with his last beer clasped in one hand and the bowl of money in the other, he nods down to The Gripper, who is slumped face-first on the floor, attached to the broken front door.

Barry screams, ‘Gripper!! I announce you the winner!’ as he hurls the bowl of money at him.

Then the roof caves in.

 

Two Thousand Years Hence

Zordak is bent over the artefact. He studies it very closely, peering through the Scanoscope. What a fascinating piece.

What did we do before the Scanoscope? he ponders to himself. Zordak’s had the Scanoscope for some years. This masterpiece laser scans objects, enabling every fibre, cell and particle in its make-up to be analysed. That’s nothing really new. But after the analysis it then demonstrates how the object can be reassembled. Or in the case of a living organism, how it can be recreated. Cell division by cell division. That’s the genius.

But a recipe is only useful with accompanying instructions. Zordak is now engineering precision machinery that follows these instructions. He started with simple matter a year back but has recently experimented with human brains. He is exhilarated by his new machinery. He’s named it the Chromospink.

The entrance to the laboratory swishes open and Krunk enters the room on his kliptocycle. Krunk is always accompanied by swishes, gurgles or burps. His sweaty, slovenly body has melted into the kliptocycle so completely he might have been born in it and his exhalations are raspy and wet. He’s a revolting noise factory.

‘Here he is,’ Zordak says dejectedly under his breath. He quickly hides the artefact under his bench because he knows Krunk doesn’t favour spending time on it. Krunk is here to discuss the Chromospink.

‘How goes it?’ Krunk roars. ‘What’ve you got for me?’

Krunk is head of the department, parachuted into the position through his schmoozing ability, not his technical knowledge. His father, JR Bentstock senior, used every contact at his disposal to resurrect Krunk’s battered prospects after Krunk got caught in a compromising position with a skin-covered humanoid at an embassy function. Head of Research and Development seemed a good option – far enough away from state surveillance but still a chance to make a good name for himself if R&D can produce a game changer.

‘We march into the future!’ Krunk spits. ‘The Chromospink! Tell me its ready!’

‘Up to thirty-three per cent success rate,’ Zordak says.

‘Getting close then.’

‘Well,’ Zordak says, ‘we’d like it to be much closer to sixty or seventy per cent before we …’

‘No time for that! When do we launch?’

‘The neurons are still very unstable and …’

‘I’m sure you’ll work it out. What else?’

‘Well,’ Zordak says tentatively, ‘I’ve also been working on this.’

He sheepishly drags out the artefact from under his bench and sits it on the examination table.

‘What is it?’ Krunk asks.

‘It’s two thousand years old. I know that much,’ Zordak says. ‘But the secrets are starting to reveal themselves. For example, the doorknob that the hand is grasping is of a sophisticated material, which indicates this was an advanced society. Opening and closing doors back then was mostly a manual task. But there’s no indication what it was a door to. Entry to some sort of community building? A government compound? A religious institution?’

‘Religious?’ Krunk asks. ‘Why would you think it was religious?’

‘Well, we know that this part of the world’s landmass, previously called Australia, was the last to feel the effects of the final, destructive sun storm. The rest of the world had already been obliterated. The only survivors, our ancestors, were the end-of-times believers who had bunkers to live in. So, what would you do if you knew the end was coming?’

Krunk scratches his chins.

‘Think I’d subscribe to a twenty-four-hour pleasure cyborg. Ha ha ha!’ he thunders, leaning back in his kliptocycle mimicking a lewd act.

‘I think it’s reasonable to assume,’ Zordak continues, ignoring Krunk’s offensive motions, ‘that these ancient folk were assembling at some sort of religious temple to pray. The tight grip that the hand has on the doorknob would attest to how important this place was. This man was desperate to get in. Was, perhaps, desperate to make one last plea to his God.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ Krunk says.

‘These people,’ Zordak continues, ‘weren’t aware that the sun experiences a cataclysmic event every one-hundred million years or so. A sort of atomic tantrum. Then it corrects itself, as we now know. But they didn’t have a clue.’

‘How does this help with the Chromospink?’ Krunk asks, beginning to get impatient.

‘The Chromospink can build a human brain from the instructions of the Scanoscope but something’s not right. The neuron somas and axon connectivity are flawed. It’s not in the chemical make-up, it’s something else. The instability might be because we construct it too well. It’s too predictable. Too uniform. We’re missing character. Personality. It.’

‘So?’ Krunk storms, turning bright pink. ‘SO?’

‘If we study the ancients, study how they thought, how they acted, how they communicated, we might be able to calculate the appropriate level of … of …’

‘Of what?’

‘Stupidity,’ Zordak says.

‘You want to build in stupidity?’ Krunk gasps.

‘Stupidity is very human. It might only be between one and ten per cent. Pretty minor. But with stupidity comes bad judgement, and with bad judgement comes learning, and with learning comes humour, imagination, creativity …’

‘Enough!’ Krunk bawls. ‘We’re on the cusp of the greatest leap forward in the history of mankind, a machine that can build a flawless brain. Can you imagine what that means? Can you imagine the kudos this will bring me? And the department? There is no limit to this. And you want to introduce stupidity!!’

‘Not much, just enough to …’

‘You’re out Zordak! Out! I’ve been very patient. I’ve warned you and warned you. But this is too much. Pack your stuff!’

In a flurry of wobbling flesh and sweat drops Krunk punches a new destination into his kliptocycle and swishes out the door. Zordak is glad he is gone.

‘Dickhead,’ he says to himself.

But he’s not concerned with Krunk’s outburst. He’s been sacked dozens of times. He knows Krunk will go to the mind-altering platform and blow his brains on some weird trip and forget the whole thing. They’ve had the Chromospink discussion for as long as he can remember. The perfect brain is a pipedream. A self-defeating delusion. The experiments show that such a brain burns out inside seven days, like a celestial vehicle permanently locked into light speed.

Zordak looks down once more at the mysterious piece in front of him. The human hand wrapped around a brass doorknob with a ferocious grip that defies logic. No other part of the body was found during the dig. Various soil tests revealed several humans in the immediate vicinity but they’d all conflagrated over time. However, the hand miraculously survived. Perhaps saved by a porcelain bowl that had fallen across it, surrounded by the ashes of small pieces of polymer.

‘Who are you?’ he asks the hand. ‘And what were you doing?’

 

 

 

 

Read the winning story by Serena Moss HERE

 

Read more about The Furphy Literary Award HERE.

 

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