Written by: Kera M. P. Gotchy
Disclaimer: This story was created with the assistance of AI. References to real places are included only for realism and should not be interpreted as factual representation.
Part 1 — Boxes and Dust
Saturday at the Club was a steady hum – clinking glasses, the murmur of conversation ebbing and flowing like a familiar rhythm. The old leather chairs creaked under the weight of quiet patrons, and the air held the faint scent of beer, chips, and time. I liked the way the past seemed to rest comfortably here. It didn’t make demands. It didn’t shout. It just…lingered.
And then I noticed him again: Thomas Bell.
Thomas wore his age like a coat too big for him – stooped shoulders, careful shoes, a cane that tapped out a rhythm only he understood. He came most Saturdays, moving through the club with a quiet grace, keeping mostly to himself. The staff called him “sir,” though he always preferred “no trouble.”
I was working at a small table near the bar, sorting through old photographs and clippings for the club’s community display, when a picture slipped from a folder and landed in my lap: men waist-deep in brown water, a timber house tilting, a child perched on someone’s shoulders. Their faces were set, grim, determined. No label. But on the back, in fading biro: Thomas Bell.
I looked up. Thomas was sitting at the corner of the bar, nursing a half-drunk beer, his fingers tracing the edge of his glass like it might slip away.
My hands shook. I told myself it was the dust and slipped the photo into a plastic sleeve with a kind of reverence, tucking it quickly into my bag.
Outside, the carpark was bathed in the harsh glow of streetlights, the hum of traffic on Gympie Road in the distance. I drove past the Prince Charles Hospital, its windows catching the last light of the day, and I wondered why a man who hated attention had his name attached to a flood photo he never spoke of.
Back at my unit in Wavell Heights, I washed my hands before laying the photo on my kitchen table beneath the fern. I tried to forget it.
But I couldn’t. The water in the picture had a voice. And it said: ask.
