Friday Flash Fiction 28

WOOMERA
By Gareth L Powell

The black and white photograph of my father that I carry in my wallet is old, dog-eared and fading around the edges. It was taken in the summer of 1965, a year before the end of the war, and shows him smoking a cigarette; the tunic of his Royal Air Force uniform is unbuttoned and he is grinning into the camera. In one hand he holds a regulation-issue revolver and he has one boot up, resting proudly on the half-buried, splintered cockpit of a wrecked Martian fighting machine.

Beside him, his co-pilot sits on the sand, one hand caught in the act of brushing his hair back. He is younger than my father, a working-class kid from Liverpool with sad eyes and a leather flying jacket. He played guitar. I met him once, many years after this photograph was taken, and I think he said his name was John.