First Place: The Dog by M. N. Cox

SUNSHINE COAST HINTERLAND WRITERS FESTIVAL
2026 WRITING COMPETITION
First Place

They hadn’t spoken in six years. Even though their kitchens shared a wall thin enough to hear cutlery on china and the same evening news.

It had been the fence. A decayed one. Warped timber, leaning here and there, missing planks. He had insisted he wasn’t paying. She got a letter to say he had to, and tapped aggressively on it to show him. Voices were raised and a contractor arrived. A new fence finally sat neat along the dividing line. The matter was settled.

They developed routines to avoid each other. Once Mrs Sartori’s grandkids kicked a ball over the fence. Mr Adams heard them calling alright, but pretended not to, placing it in the bin the next day. When his roses—his pride—went missing, he knew what had happened to them. He knew.

Then one day the dog appeared. A dull black thing, all ribs and hunger. It was just there hanging around their back fences where, beyond a skinny alley, there was bushland.

The dog paced between the houses and by late morning it was still there. Mrs Sartori put out water first. A shallow dish, near the Night Jessamine bush. She snapped a picture of the dog and put it in the Facebook group, hoping the owner would see.

The next morning arrived. Dry biscuits in a metal bowl. Mr Adams didn’t even look at her when he took it out there.

Nobody messaged about the dog and days passed. He drank from one and got food from the other, and slept in an indentation underneath one of the bushes.

Eventually it rained and Mr Adams was quick to drag an old crate outside. The next day, it had a towel inside, faded pink with flowers embroidered on the edge.

Weeks passed, and the dog was gaining weight. Sometimes it looked like it was trying to anticipate from which house the human would come, but when it saw either neighbour, its tail wagged. They both began to smile when they saw the dog.

One night a car screeched at the front. They both went racing out to find the dog had wandered into the street. It looked shaken and hesitated when Mrs Sartori called.

Mr Adams crouched down, palm out. His voice low and gentle in a way she hadn’t heard before. The dog came to him.

For a moment the neighbours faced each other, the dog in between.

‘You should keep him,’ he said, not meeting her eyes.

She shook her head. ‘He sleeps against your fence.’

Mr Adams almost smiled.

The dog stayed inside Mr Adams’s yard that night but the next day he came outside with tools and removed two planks from the dividing fence between their homes. Mrs Sartori watched from the back patio. When he finished, their eyes met. A nod, and they went about their day.