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Friends had warned him about taking up the job offer. Sure, it would be more money and a great opportunity to use his freshly minted degree, but it was so far from the inner city and its heady mix of food, friends, and culture. He’d know no-one.

But Baldram had seen a chance to experience something outside the usual swirl of career infighting and jostling for positions. His inner strategist knew that a secondment like this could position him for roles that would really challenge him. So he said yes.

The first few weeks were a haze of activity. Relocating, finding somewhere to live in town, establishing a rhythm of work and getting to know his colleagues. They seemed friendly enough, and he learned to smile politely and simplify his response to remarks about his unusual name (it means fortunate prince — he had long ago dropped the ‘prince’ and explained it meant he was lucky), and no, he’d prefer not to be called Baldy instead (male pattern baldness was another inheritance, in addition to his name), and yes, he liked what he’d seen of the town.

What had been harder to manage was the way everyone seemed to be involved in groups with informal gatherings, a casual yet exclusive membership. Baldram didn’t want to look too desperate and ask outright to go along to one of the nights out or trips to nearby towns that was the talk of the office on a Monday, but as time passed, he felt the yearning for a deeper kind of connection. One of his Melbourne mates had picked up on it on one of Baldram’s trips back to the city. Manny was a Bendigo boy, and whilst his experience in a big regional centre was different, he’d explained that it took longer to be accepted by locals in a town. But once you were in, you were set.

So Baldram did his best to be friendly and approachable, and had managed to distract himself with work and other interests.

It caught him by surprise when a couple of his workmates called him over on a Thursday afternoon. Did he know anything about shooting? Baldram’s mind flickered back to hours as a teenager spent trying to annihilate monsters in video games. He’d shrugged and said not really. Not to worry, they assured him. He could drive, or be on spotlight patrol. Baldram swallowed, his thoughts spinning with fragments of images of wild pigs, blood, baying dogs. He’d been repulsed at the stories of gore that he’d overheard on a Monday, but what if this was his only chance to join in?

‘Sure,’ he said.

This was written to a prompt at my local writing group. We each selected a name at random from a dictionary (Baldram – Teutonic – fortunate prince) and a situation from a pile of prompts (getting an invitation).

Photo: sunset view from Sofala, NSW