What a great story Graeme .

I really liked Brian's POV of the whole situation. His internal struggles, and sometime external, really showed what a great guy he is.

Your descriptions of the setting and how everything came together was very well done. I could actually imagine being there and watching the story take place, from the original waterfall scene, to Mike's fall, to Brian reviving him, and right up to the end. The description of how the fire started and spread and how the guys survived was very realistic, at least in my mind.

I could have done without the snake, I'm with Mike on that one .

The ending was the most interesting part. You could argue that it was a happy ending, or a not so happy ending equally. I guess it would depend on if your an optimist or pessimist on what interpretation you would have.

Thanks for writing this anthology, and I'm hoping that it is not from any personal experience of your own.

Great Job Graeme.

Steve

I don't mind snakes, but they aren't my favourite creature. Snakes often travel in streams, and at the time of a bushfire, a lot of animals head to the water -- snakes included.


Brian still has a long way to go. He doesn't really understand what he has to do, but at least he's hopefully started to move in the right direction.


No, it's not from personal experience, though bushfires are a regular occurrence in my state each Summer. At one point I intended to join the CFA as a volunteer (I live in a rural area, so it makes good sense) but I've never gotten around to it. So most of the knowledge on CFA procedures comes from my brother-in-law. As for the injury -- I ran that past a paramedic and he vetoed my first suggestion as being too life threatening. I've got no personal experience with broken bones at all....


Thanks, Steve!

Hi Graeme,
I see 3 different parts in your story.
Brian, where he comes from, his feelings as a lonely gay; he is the main character and the story deals about him.
Mike, a gift of the destiny, just a cunterpoint for the main melody of Brian's feelings.
The fire, "Deus ex machina" of the story, IMO the most important character, without it nothing would have happened.
(BTW, for those readers who should ask, "Deus ex machina" (literally "god out of a machine") is an improbable contrivance in a story. The phrase describes an artificial, or improbable, character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot)
Your description of the "birth" of the fire is amazing and IMO the best part of your story .
Work well done (as usual ).
Old bob

I loved it, Graeme!!

As someone who lives in a wildfire prone area, this really hit home to me. Wildfires are a real and present danger, and sadly not uncommon, either in the area Graeme wrote about, or here, or in many other places.

I made a few notes as I read;
I loved the shirtless arrival carrying the billy can! :-)

A cliff?? Hrmmm, yes, a cliff in your story...

I found the bone-setting well done and believable. I also liked Brian's inventiveness.

I love Brian's inner battle with his conscience and fears.

Brian's bedside manner could use a bit of work. :-) "You're badly hurt, so just relax". I think it's very appropriate, but it also made me smile.

"No, and we couldn't, anyway. It's a Total Fire Ban day." That made me chuckle. Believable because people say odd things under stress, and IMHO it served to highlight their stress.

"We go that way and we die. We've got to get to the waterfall." Brilliant! This part struck me as the most clever of all. When the story started, i was wondering how the heck they would get out of the canyon; those become firestorms all too often. Behind the waterfall would be about their only hope. It would still be risky, due to the smoke, but it would be the best chance they had.

Loved the bittersweet ending. You didn't go for the cliché of Mike falling for Brian, but Mike sure gave enough hints that it's at least a possibility in the reader's minds. I very much liked the "save himself" ending line. Mike took the first step in escaping his self-imposed prison. Poignant and very fitting. Great story!

Great story Graeme!


This led me to ponder whether or not the fire was Mike's fault. It sounded like it might have been his camp that the description referenced. Which would 'balance' the story in terms of culpability since Brian was largely (at least indirectly) responsible for Mike's injuries, it would perhaps be fitting if Mike were the one responsible for the fire.


I must say I'm usually pretty up on Australian, British, and Canadian terms (at least for an American), but this was a new one on me! Is it essentially a canteen?


Haha, well at least it beats, "Dude! You can't possibly get up, so you'd might as well lay there."


I felt like a really learned something about survival from this story too! Well done Graeme! My skills in this area are lacking and Mike's lucky he didn't have his accident around me. I can barely swim (in fact it's charitable to describe my floundering in the water as 'swimming' at all), so I couldn't have pulled him out. I have/had no idea how to properly do mouth to mouth (wouldn't have remembered to check the airways or pinch the nose, though both sound familiar now that I hear it again), and I'd have been utterly clueless about making a splint.

LOL, my approach would likely have been to look for a big branch to fish him out with, and in the unlikely event that that worked I'd have probably just hugged him or something hoping he came to.

**makes mental note to look up info on basic survival skills**

Anyway, like I said, great story

-Kevin

It's basically a cooking pot, unless the ones I saw there many years ago were mislabeled. It's a covered pot with a metal handle like a paint can's over the top (but it can swing). They are used for camping. Over here they would be called a camp pot or similar. They hold about a gallon as I recall.

BTW, one thing I wanted to mention and forgot; The way Graeme used different sized fonts to indicate the distant "Cooee's" and enlarging them as they grew louder. That was very innovative and also very effective!

My view is that, yes, it was Mike's fire that started the bushfire. He hadn't intended to be away from it as long as he was....

We don't get to see if Mike suspected that his fire was the cause, because we don't get his thoughts. Of course, maybe it wasn't just panic that made him snappy once they discovered the fire.


Here's a picture of one, as it could've been used by Mike.



Don't assume I know too much, either. I did some research, but most of it was from my guesses. I essentially put myself in Brian's shoes and tried to think of what I would've done. I checked with a paramedic to make sure that what Brian did would have the correct results, but the ideas were largely my own. I have no idea whether that splint would have held, but I decided to be generous

Thanks, everyone, for the comments!

Old bob: I have to disagree with calling the fire a "Deus ex machina" because it was a trigger for the story, not the solution. If the fire solved a problem, then yes, it would be a "Deus ex machina". However, I have it as being a basic element that set up the story. It's improbable, but the whole story is based on the improbably happening.

Otherwise, thank you Gum trees are notorious for loosing branches, so the birth of the fire was an easy scene for me to write. I'm glad you liked it

I agree; that was innovative!




Thanks! I have seen those before, didn't know that's what they were called in Australia.


ohhh, that is a good theory!


LOL, well hopefully in that scenario I'd be a bit more inventive than what I described above...but I'm really not sure I would be! (well maybe now, having read this )


That's what I was thinking too actually.

I think that in most stories events and situations aren't exactly like one would expect in everyday life for everyday people, but my assumption is that one of the reason these people and events (the ones authors choose to write about) are featured is because their lives and situations aren't completely commonplace.




-Kevin

This was a really enjoyable story -- I began to read it and then had to go shopping and cooking for a while, and while I did that I found my thoughts constantly drifting back to the story, and I couldn't wait to get back to the comp so I could go on reading.

Brian was a great character, and the way Mike kept acting ambiguously all the time was very interesting too. Spontaneously, I would call the ending happy -- for several reasons: they both made it without serious (or at least life-threatening) injuries, Brian made a very important realisation when Sharon showed up, which might well change his life significantly and in a good way, and last but not least, it seems likely that Brian and Mike would stay friends after something like this, and who knows what that might lead to?

I agree with all of this! It wouldn't have been realistic or fair to 'turn Mike gay' to give it a fairytale ending

Besides, that wouldn't have been a happy ending for Sharon at all! Sharon and Mike also seem to get their happy ending this way as well

I think that Brian will put his revelation and determination toward gainful endeavors. On a practical level it probably wouldn't have even been a good idea for him to rush into anything with a guy. He didn't seem completely ready and jumping into anything too serious too quickly probably wouldn't be wise.


Well, I bet Brian gets some more kisses at least!

Interesting, the original ending line was "Now who is going to save me?" rather than the one that made it into the final version. Every single one of my beta readers AND my editors hated it, so this is a good example of my accepting that my view wasn't the right one to use.

I had picked that line, because I thought it was more realistic. Brian hasn't gone far enough down the road to being able to step forward himself. He would have been looking for help with that process, not realising that the bulk of the work ahead of him was inside himself, not outside. But, while I still think it was realistic, I accepted it didn't make as strong a story ending, so I changed it to one that's more positive.

Yes, he's still got a long way to go, but at least he's started

I love this story. The setting was amazing. It makes me want to get a passport and go to Australia!
I loved your ending. It wasn't sad but at the same time it was not predictable.

I enjoyed the story. I was hoping - just a little bit - that Mike would reconsider Sharon by the end, but... that would be too surreal. Instead I found myself wishing Brian all the best.

Good job, Graeme.

You want to go to Australia to be in a bushfire? I based this story on one of the state forests north of Melbourne, but I didn't specify which because I never got a chance to go out exploring to see if there was a suitable location. I remember driving through one many years ago, along the four-wheel drive trails, and it was fun. I wouldn't mind camping out there, but, like Sharon, my wife needs hot and cold running water wherever we stay, so I'd be camping by myself, or maybe the boys, when they're older.


I refused to give into that cliche. The odds of two guys, meeting at random in the forest, and both turning out to be gay or bi, well... I just thought that was stretching things too much. I stretched things enough with the timing of Mike's accident and the fire starting as it is

Thanks for the comments I'm really glad you enjoyed the story.