New Story – Shortlisted for the Te Tauihu Short Story Award 2025

There’s a house in a place you can’t see.

I used to live there but can no longer remember how to find it. It was full of noise, colour, and light. Giggles and chatter bounced off its walls, and the currency of smiles and dreams could buy you anything you wanted, from a five-cent mixture at the corner dairy to a helicopter cap from Haywrights.

I tried to smile at the thought, but my face disagreed, scowling instead. It’s always been like that.

Runny sun streamed in through the arched windows like nectar dripping from heaven. It felt warm, shiny, zingy, but somehow sticky. It smelled of life, a young, fresh whiff of wintergreen liniment blended with the scent of dirty football socks and reeking ballet flats.

Laughter tickled your ears there, and fun wrinkled your eyes. But here, it seems there are endless hallways with rooms full of empty minds chasing escaping thoughts.  

There is a touch.

Unexpected.

Did a butterfly land and lash a kiss on my skin, so thin and blotchy? I chuckle at my folly. Of course not; it’s something else. Autumn banishes butterflies like life banishes hope.

“Would you like a tour?”

“I’m tired,” I replied.

“Come on, it’s okay; I’ll take you there.”

“This place,” the woman said. “This place is so big it’s almost beyond comprehension. But let me show you the bits I know. I think you’ll like it here.”

I couldn’t see her. I didn’t have to; her tone told me she was lying. No one here could like it, not even the staff. My limbs went rigid, my torso tightened, my bowels and bladder wobbled like a startled jellyfish.

“It’s okay,” I protested, as she pushed my chair down the endless beige, fluff-less carpeted corridors. “I don’t want to go.”

People were staring. Faces pressed up against imaginary glass like they were outside looking in, their gawping blank faces wide-eyed, open mouths silently cursing at their stiffened, sleepy bodies.

“Who…who… are they?”

The chair stopped immediately. My pusher moved in front of me. 

At first, I didn’t recognise the face; but then, slowly, like a dawdling clackety train emerging from a tunnel, a light shone, and I began to see it was me.

They are the living dead searching for memories, mining for lost thoughts.

They also know what you did.

“Take me back,” I screamed, rocking forward. “Stop it, I want to go back to where I was before.”

You can’t go back. You can only go forward.

The back of the house was cold. I shivered. People moaned here. Muffled voices screaming ‘help,’ their wretched bodies pleading without words, contorted faces wanting to escape.

I was led to another room.

There was an explosion, and a charred, dead child lay prone. A blanket of soot and ash covered her previously soft, pale skin. A singed wooden skeleton stood by, guarding her.

In the time between birdsong and sun-up, she comes to me just as she has done for the last sixty-six years.

“Get up,” she chirps, “time for school.”

I get up. I shower. I cry in the stall where no one can hear or see. The steamy stream and foolish soap clean but never wash away the stain or my pain. Guilt clings to my body like snot to a rock, ever spreading and never letting go. It weighs heavily, and I carry this grime wherever I go. I’m never free of it. It chokes me, and only death will bring that sweet mercy of fresh air; how I crave that.

“Let’s play camping.”

She smiles, takes me by the hand. I’m led to her room.

We pull the covers down. It’s dark under her bed. We whisper and giggle. I notice the corners of her mouth turn up and crinkle her soft lips. Her eyes are bright despite the dark. Lying on our tummies, we kick our legs up to the mattress. Flat bare feet tickle it with soft thuds, and our dried, caked, bare-footed heels scratch the sheet that covers it.

It’s funny what you remember.

I go blank.

Thank God. That is all I have ever wanted.

The Station Officer from the Fire Brigade tells my mother that matches are to blame. 

My mother collapses, and my father wanders about the blackened trusses and beams, the burnt carcass of our home. He tries to speak but shakes instead, then hangs his head.

“No,” Mum screams. No, not my baby!”

She pulls Emily’s ballet flats to her chest, hugging them, knowing there is no tomorrow. There’s nothing to like here.

I stand by in silence, watching. There is nothing I can say. A stalking ache suddenly overwhelms. It grabs me, shakes me, then violates my body, tearing at my heart, my soul. It tightens, then steals my breath. Tears form, but they don’t fall. They come later and never stop. 

“I love ballet,” Emily says.

“I love soccer,” I reply as if fun were a competition.

She smiles. “When I dance, music comes out of my toes. They crunch up like Christmas wrapping paper. Then they stretch, and my tutu sparkles like the diamonds on Mum’s ring. It feels so good, my legs start to sing.”

“Whatever,” I’m unimpressed and unable to come up with anything so imaginative. “Soccer is way better than ballet.”    

I’ve lived my life reluctantly, the seconds refusing to tick faster. The minutes hiss at my feeble attempts to hasten them. Recalcitrant hours and days scorn, laugh at me, mocking. Time in lieu, I think, knowing time doesn’t owe me anything. It’s me who’s in debt. 

The Doctor shakes his head.

“The tests,” he says, “indicate dementia.”

“I’m sorry.”

I remember driving home with a smile on my face.

One day, there will be peace. Eventually, my life sentence will be commuted. I will be released. I close my eyes and wait. Once again, time laughs at me, knowing all I have ever wanted in life is to forget.

The concrete pad in front of the garage doubles as a stage. “My toes love the grip, she says, “the grit gives them energy.”

I kick my ball into the side of the garage, thump, thump, thump. I look over. Emily’s still dancing timelessly. She pirouettes, stumbles, nearly falls, then spins again, “Jack, look! There’s music everywhere. My toes are singing!”   

“Jack,” Mum yells from the kitchen window, “time to go to practice, and thank God for that; you’re bloody well giving me a headache kicking that ball. Emily, come inside now, it’s time for your bath.”

I grab my ball and run off toward the park. I turn, and Emily has already kicked off her ballet shoes and run inside.

“Now that you’ve had the tour, I’ll take you to your room, Mr Turner. Get you unpacked and settled in.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled. Sixty years of festered loathing emerged from lungs too tired to care.

“It’s dark in here,” Emily says. “Bet it’s spooky at nighttime, even if I have Teddy with me.”

“I’ll get a candle and some matches,” I say, “lighten the place up.”

I shake my head. I mutter a curse. I want to run, but my arms don’t have the strength to lift me out of the chair. My legs twitch incessantly, a vision of a headless chicken spurting blood and running around the yard enters the frame, but I am not the chicken. I am the axe.

I am stuck fast, cast. I prepare for the onslaught. As always, grief showers over me first, and then anger gouges my closed eyes, awakening them so that I relive my youthful foolishness and impetuousness. I see a girl of seven dancing, then I see nothing. It’s black, like smoke. Everything is gone. Everything is gone.

I smile.    

“Are you okay, Mr Turner?”

I stare at her, wondering who she is.

“Let’s get you unpacked,” she says. “Make you feel at home.”

“Oh, what are these? They look like a child’s pair of ballet shoes. Are they yours, Mr Turner?”

She holds them up, faded pink, sad and old, long since devoid of toes and song.

“Do you want to keep them? You know you won’t need them in here. If they’re yours, it’s probably been a while since you danced. Are they important?”

I look up and stare, my face scowling like it does. I’m sure I know her, but just can’t place her.

“Shall I get rid of them, then? I mean, they’re pretty old and tatty. No one else will want these old things.”

The black bag beside her accepts the shoes greedily as their scuffed heels tickle and scratch the plastic on the way down; they land softly on the bottom with a gentle thud.    Somewhere down the corridor, I hear someone singing. My toes scrunch up, and I tap my feet. I want to sing, but don’t remember the words.