The story below was awarded Highly Commended in the 2026 Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers Competition Short Story category, written by Peta Keown.
Peta is happiest outside, inspired by nature and the animal kingdom. She is grateful to be a family woman, a vet, and a writer. She is currently working on a novel and hopes to finish soon.
The crew ignored Mara. Since she started the supplementary work, rumours were wildfires. She didn’t want anyone’s approval anyway. She reclined in her ute’s shadow, while her kelpie dozed next to her. The morning already throbbed with the rasp of cicadas.
A car radio blasted with loud personalities yabbering about the likelihood of another fire outbreak today.
‘It’s just another symptom of climate collapse,’ the announcer told his co-host.
Mara found their voices too excited. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breath. Those media extroverts forgot there were real lives involved in these tragedies. Mara tried to imagine a wall. A lovely concrete brick wall. Painted white. Nothing could get round the wall.
She opened her eyes and noticed a young guy sweating in suit pants. He looked completely out of place amongst the aftermath team. Mara watched as he darted between groups, as if searching for someone.
A loud ringtone sounded and a red-faced police officer put his phone to his ear. Everyone looked.
‘Ok, all clear,’ the cop shouted, circling his pointed finger in the air.
Mara tipped out Huxley’s water bowl, letting the residual water bead on the parched ground. The kelpie took the cue and jumped into the back of the ute. The ute was already replenished with water and medicine. The bandage materials were stocked, but unopened this season.
As Mara turned the ute, she noticed a bird had discovered the tiny puddle of dog’s water. It tried to suck up the moisture before it was lost. Mara felt a familiar pang of sadness and drove on carefully.
Just then, the guy in the suit pants slid in front of her vehicle and banged his hands on the bonnet. This she did not like.
She opened the window and set her face in a scowl.
‘Mara, isn’t it?’ he asked.
This was unusual.
‘Name’s Adam,’ he put his hand through the window as if to shake hands. Mara kept her hands on the wheel.
‘So, eh… Any chance I could join you? I’m a reporter.’
He rattled off the name of some website, but Mara had never heard of it.
‘I’m writing about job evolution in these unprecedented times,’ he continued.
Mara weighed up the pros and cons of letting the reporter ride along. Mara had been alone since her last assistant had a hissy fit about the job and left. This reporter might make her out to be a villain. Generally, she despised reporters with their sensationalist angles. They had a responsibility to make a difference, but they never did. On the other hand, she could enjoy a distraction and he could help move road obstructions.
‘Have you got water?’ asked Mara.
‘About 10 litres.’
‘Put your camping gear in the back.’
‘Do you need any water?’ His voice was light.
‘Of course not.’
***
Adam buckled his seat belt as the woman accelerated impatiently. She was older than he had expected. Drove like a twenty-year-old male though. She charged along the road until they reached a desolate landscape of blackened trees. The woman slowed down as Adam took in the eerie stillness and the lack of colour.
He remembered why he was there.
‘How long have you been a wildlife vet?’ he asked.
‘Almost thirty years.’
‘What’s your favourite animal?’
The vet turned towards him. ‘Can you see my eyes roll?’
Adam braced himself. This life had hardened Mara. He put his hands in the air in surrender.
‘I just want to set the record straight. Tell it like it is out here,’ said Adam.
‘Kangaroo!’Mara announced.
The car skidded to a holt and the cranky woman shushed Adam with a finger across her lips. Adam sat in the cabin and noted the vet didn’t seem to care if he followed. When he saw her rifle, he quietly got out and trailed behind. He scanned the landscape for a kangaroo, but the air was thick with smoke haze, and he strained to see anything. He untucked his shirt and used the corner to wipe his damp face. White cotton turned brown.
Finally, he saw it. The kangaroo lay on its side. Its chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. Its fur was singed as black as the trees.
An almighty sound shocked through the air. Adam fell to his knees as the kangaroo’s head jolted with the force of the bullet.
Then stilled.
Adam saw the vet check its heart with a stethoscope and start back to the car.
He took a moment then headed back too, only to be stung by Mara’s look. Perhaps she was amused by his fall when he heard the gunshot. Perhaps she was annoyed he slowed her down.
‘Shouldn’t you check for a joey?’ he asked as he climbed in the car.
‘That’s a male roo,’ she said. Adam felt her satisfaction in his marrow.
***
Mara contemplated Adam as they drove in silence. He didn’t seem like a typical wildlife warrior who cared about joeys. He seemed like a footballer who’d accidentally ended up in a suit. But he surprised her; how did he know about looking for joeys?
Her ute soon kicked up gravel dust as she stopped again. A smaller roo this time. The animal tried to get away, but its feet didn’t work. It fell to the ground, making a deep guttural sound.
Up close, its feet were red, raw, skinless.
The sound of the rifle reverberated. No birds startled. Everything seemed dead in the aftermath zone. There weren’t even insects, which chilled Mara every time.
‘Shouldn’t you try and bandage the feet? Apply some cream?’ asked the reporter as he edged beside her.
‘Then what?’ said Mara.
She reached into the pouch, pulled out a joey. Mara had seen plenty of hand-raised, lanky-legged, orphans dependent on wildlife carers. But all the wildlife carers’ properties she knew of around these parts would have gone up in flames. It didn’t bear thinking about. She injected a lethal syrup, straight into the baby’s liver. Then she packed up.
‘Do you save anything?’ asked the reporter.
Mara launched into a rant. ‘I’ve got a whole lot of decision-making going on. I’m considering recovery time, extent of injuries, availability of carers, chance of return to their territory. So…’ She avoided eye contact with him and turned away. Next minute, she felt his hand on her shoulder. It was a gentle touch, probably meant to show empathy, but it made her jerk away. She looked him square in the face.
‘These are “unprecedented” times as you journos like to call them. There’s nowhere for the animals to go.’ Anger simmered, tangling her thoughts. She couldn’t find the words she wanted. Her anger towards journalists was not the real problem.
‘I relieve suffering,’ she shouted too loudly in the silence. This was what her passion had amounted to. The Country swallowed her tormented words, and burped bereft.
She crunched forward on the charcoal and tried not to let her shoulders stoop as she increased the distance between herself and the journo.
Later, when she calmed down, she considered showing the reporter how to check hollow logs, but he lagged too far behind.
Huxley jumped over what remained of a blackened fence.
***
Adam followed the path of the dog. He’d rather observe than speak to Mara for now. The dog sprang over a blackened fence and then stopped to sniff two scorched logs. Adam was about to step over the logs when he saw the vet lean down and hold two fingers towards one. Adam felt a surge through his guts as he realised she was checking for signs of life and the logs were actually charred humans. Lives who lost their link to this world.
Adam watched the vet continue to the second log, her face grim as she felt for a pulse. There was a barely audible groan. Adam stumbled backwards and found his balance with his hands on his knees. He waited for an acid vomit that never came. When he recovered, he saw the vet had swung the rifle from her shoulder. A bullet fired and the charred human whimpered no more.
The vet turned to Adam, her face dark.
‘This is what you came for.’
***
They went on like this all day. He’d heard about the number of casualties but seeing the numbers up close was staggering. Adam came seeking a story and he got one, but he couldn’t see how he was going to inject hope into it. He’d hoped there would be stories of hope borne from the animals, but now he realised he’d been naive. The vet couldn’t save animals out here. What was he going to tell his daughter?
Later that night, as the light started to fade, but the temperature remained oppressive, they set up camp. They shared a dinner of packaged protein bars and tinned fruit. Adam laboured over the chewing, thinking about questions for his news item.
‘Surely there are rules if you’re not a human doctor?’ he asked.
‘The doctors are grateful. It gives them a break from all those people suffering in hospital for the wrong reasons. You remember everything changed in 2036,’ said Mara.
‘How do you live with yourself?’ Adam asked.
‘I dunno. Maybe I like humans less every day. They are responsible for this whole mess.’
A headline appeared in Adam’s mind. Jaded vet gets revenge on entire human race. Definitely not hopeful.
‘What about you? Are you responsible for the mess?’ he asked, genuinely interested to hear how she saw herself.
‘Every time I got a disposable coffee cup, I was responsible.’
The wind picked up and dust flew into Adam’s eyes. He blinked to stop the tears.
‘You journos are responsible too,’ said Mara.
Adam looked into the creeping darkness and steadied himself.
‘Your headlines were always so goddam divisive. Why did you have to debate climate change and give a voice to doubt? You could have made change happen,’ said Mara.
Adam flexed his legs. ‘Do you get used to the feeling of bile rising in your throat?’ he asked.
But the vet didn’t answer. Instead she pulled a bottle from the back of her ute, and poured two glasses.
***
They sipped in silence for a while. Mara was tired of talking. She was tired of him judging her. The vodka burnt her insides like a punishment. Soon, she retreated to her tent. Huxley curled up next to her. She wished she could sleep as easily as the kelpie. Fear tore at her, worries of what more might come. Visions of burnt wildlife and horses haunted her. Soon she was thinking of her Dad, his skin bloated and grey. A feeling of helplessness. And then the question came, about turning the machine off. A mechanical beast that inflated her Dad’s lungs when his brain forgot how. To give permission was all she could do.
She turned and rustled under her sheet. She was glad for the vodka in her belly, blunting the edge of everything. Finally, sleep came.
***
Adam was glad he packed a tee-shirt and shorts – by mid-morning, it was another stinker of a day. He mulled over his article as they drove. The relentless despair of the job has fortified the vet. Or something. He knew there must have been a time when she wasn’t this guarded. He wished he could find some kernel to make a story.
‘Where’s home, Mara?’
‘Dad ran horse trail rides all over the district. That was home, but I haven’t lived there for decades.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Gone now.’
Adam opened the window and hot air blew in like a fan-forced oven to the face.
Mara thumped a closed fist on her door.
‘Shut it,’ she said.
***
For the first few years after Mara’s father’s death, a hot gust of wind triggered memories of the terrible day. But the hot days were so frequent now, her only protection was imagined. A cool, white wall, that memories were not permitted to seep around.
But today as she drove, trying to think of something useful to tell Adam, memories began to seep around the edges of the wall. She remembered the strong lips of Dad’s horses as they snuffled chopped apples from her hand.
It was a memory safe enough to share.
‘My whole childhood, I was outside with animals. It brought me so much happiness. My joie de whatever,’ she said.
On the road ahead, colour burst out of the monochrome surroundings. Plastic play equipment had melted and reset in an eternal dripping scape. Mara sensed Adam wince as they got closer.
‘You’ve got kids?’ asked Mara.
‘Yep.’ His voice choked. ‘It was Taylah who taught me to look for joeys.’
‘Most kids love animals. Poor things. It’s not their fault they inherited this.’
‘The kids are so innocent,’ whispered Adam.
‘Animals too,’ said Mara, a faint smile threatening to concede a shared sadness.
Suddenly the kelpie sprang across the ute tray, barking. Mara pulled over to assess what Huxley had seen, then turned to the reporter. There’s a house. Huxley’s smelt something. If anyone’s there, they’ll be thirsty, hungry and thinking about their fate.’ She glanced at the reporter. ‘Time to find out about the evolution of my job.’
She saw him gulp.
The kelpie yapped and flew down from the tray and up a driveway.
Mara looped her thumbs through the straps of her backpack and pressed forward.
***
Adam surveyed the grey scene. Concrete pillars, ash, and charcoal marked where a house used to be. All the wood seemed to be gone. Adam focused on words he could write to describe it. Desolation. A bomb site. Well, more specifically, a fire aftermath site.
He made out shapes and startled when he noticed the whites of eyes staring at him. A grey figure sat where a door should be. The grey man was alive, covered in the fine grey ash, but not burnt. No need for the limitless vet after all, Adam thought with relief.
But the vet blazed onwards. Adam saw the scene unfold in slow motion. Just as Mara reached the man Adam noticed an almost imperceptible falter in her step. More evidence she was not completely numb.
***
Up close, the grey hue of the man’s skin made Mara lose momentum. She felt young once again, next to the giant, inaccessible island of an ICU bed. It was the grey that stirred up memories of her personal horror. The last time she saw her Dad, he was in a coma. His body bandaged, burnt and bloated, his skin dull grey and lifeless. Doctors looking at her with sad eyes, delivering news, waiting for her to make the decision.
But today’s Grey Man sat upright with his eyes open. He was dusty, not burnt.
Mara approached him as she would a frightened animal. Quietly. Slowly.
‘Are you injured?’
‘Na, I’m right,’ said the Grey Man.
‘Where are your family?’
‘They didn’t make it. No one…’ His voice choked.
Adam had stopped a few metres away, giving the illusion of privacy. But Mara knew he listened. She introduced herself as an aftermath vet.
‘Do you have any home insurance left from before the final cut-off in 2030?’ she asked.
‘No.’ The Grey Man’s voice trembled.
Mara tried to soften her voice. ‘The fire went through three days ago.’
‘Is that all?’ The survivor looked around his property. He closed his eyes and pointed his face towards the sky.
‘You’re the vet I’ve heard about,’ said the survivor.
‘Yes. I relieve suffering.’
‘No family, no home. Do me a favour,’ said the man. His tired smile was an offering to Mara. A pretence that everything was okay.
‘Injection, or…’ Mara pointed at her rifle.
‘Yeah, I’ll go the injection. Thanks,’ whispered the man.
Mara recognised a faint glimmer. He was grateful. A shimmer in the dust. It wasn’t hope, but it was help when all was lost. It was important work. This was how she helped in the darkest days.
She placed a cannula in his arm and secured it.
‘Ready?’
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