~~~
‘What miracle is this, I came upon a checkout clear,’ said Mary, admiring the fatted calf and much tempted by a tender rump but she turned her face away and bought wholemeal loaves and fishes and capers and sun dried tomatoes and porcini mushrooms, but she digresseth.
‘You know what all this means?’ she said to Joseph. ‘Rellies descending on us like locusts eating us out of house and home and there is sure to be a vegan to be catered for and I doubt Thomas will bring even a fruit platter. If only I could turn water into wine. I swear this will be the last supper I have here in this hovel. Just because we missed the property boom doesn’t mean we’re stuck here forever and ever. Amen!’
‘No fear Mary, I hear it will be 20% off everything after Christmas.’
‘If you think that applies to real estate, you really are a moron. Honestly, as God is my witness, if I had known what I was getting myself into it would be a very different version of events I can tell you.’
For the Lord helps those who help themselves.
So self help me God!
Saturday 8 December 2012
Marvellous Words
Amber Johnson
Highgate Hill, QLD
The rumour reached my ears
that you harbour a rage.
It swells when my writing
manoeuvres through each page.
Who knew that writing ‘mum’
would cause such upheaval?
Your dismal behaviour
is simply mediaeval.
Why not take a moment
to freely analyse
the cultural difference
that you fail to recognise?
You swiftly criticised
how I spelt every word,
but I won’t apologise;
your objections are absurd.
I savour each sentence
because I make you squirm.
If I say my favourite colour
will you wriggle like a worm?
Pound your chest like Tarzan
and call me ‘snobby-bitch’.
I’ll still use British spelling;
I find humour in your twitch.
Amber wrote this satirical poem for an American rival who loathes British spelling. Amber says: ‘May he shudder upon reading it.’ We are sure he will!!
Sunday 9 December 2012
Renationship
David Anderson
Woodford, NSW
Zoe and Barry bought two homes the past five years
Renovated, auctioned off, a profit with no tears
With every idle moment searching hardware catalogues
They had no time for making love, no dream home, kids or dogs
No time for dancin’, romancin’ or weekends by the sea
Just garage sales and auctions, DIY shows on TV
They didn’t see it coming – but their best friends they all knew
If they didn’t change this lifestyle their relationship was through
Renovate your love life, don’t paint that new front door
Take her on a weekend break, not to a hardware store
Just lay down that toolbox and spend more time alone
Buy her flowers, take her dancing, call her on the phone
This couple were in trouble – they fought most every night
Arguing Art Deco? Modern? Who the hell is right?
Till a New Age counsellor – sent them both away
To a quite retreat at Byron on a five day holiday
Laying in a hot jacuzzi sipping cocktails by the score
Checking out the cedar ceiling, windows and the door
‘When we get back to Sydney, let’s build a room like this’
They spent all night drawing plans – they didn’t even kiss
Renovate your love life, don’t paint that new front door
Take her on a weekend break, not to a hardware store
Just lay down that toolbox and spend more time alone
Buy her flowers, take her dancing, call her on the phone
Monday 10 December 2012
Over The Fence
Leonie Bingham
Katoomba, NSW
Clouds sit in the sky. They don’t billow. They don’t move. They just sit there, touching the trees and each other. Where there is space, the blue sky is veined, almost sinewy. A small piece of cloud, a rebel, escapes the herd. It flits over the sun and the valley darkens, just for a moment.
I have recently moved to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. My home sits on the north-eastern escarpment of The Gully in the Upper Kedumba River Valley. The Gully is both an Aboriginal Place and a site of Aboriginal displacement and dispossession, a paradox created by colonisation. White settlement saw the area surrounding my home resumed by local government and renamed Frank Walford Park, then Catalina Park. During this period of prolonged instability, an amusement park and touring race car track were constructed on the site culminating in the 1957 eviction of all Gully residents.
This landscape is one of secrets and historical legacies. Its many trails lead to other times and places. A pristine waterfall carved by nature’s hand sings of a time when its water ran clear. The edible pith of tree ferns, and peat moss used to dress wounds existed here long before smallpox and influenza arrived in this valley. Less than a century ago the Kedumba Creek flowed freely before it was dammed for human recreation. A place once devoid of racing cars, rusted advertising signs, blackberries and bitumen.
The Gully is part of the Blue Mountains’ dry sclerophyll plateau. A series of deeply dissected sandstone escarpments such as The Gully plunge into gorges and valleys, masquerading as mountains. The soil here is said to be infertile, acidic, a phosphoric pool of bleakness. But some flora and fauna disagree. The forest’s understorey is busy as parrots flitter from bottlebrush to wattle, indecisive, gorging on nature’s plenitude. A bee settles on a wild spinach flower. Pockets of invisible rainforest hide deep inside the eucalyptus’s protective arms. Here wet and dry sclerophyll are neighbours, offering this complex ecosystem protection.
Nuances in this landscape speak of oppression and survival. Introduced blackberries tangle with native maidenhair ferns. A 1950s toilet block spattered with bird poo and graffiti; the crumbling bricks seem held together by cobwebs and pale winter grasses. Native ducks swim in the man-made ornamental lake, once Katoomba’s swimming pool. A chainsaw screams, its sound bouncing to and fro. This part of The Gully is a natural amphitheatre, which has seen many actors take its arena of sandstone and clay. Watching over the arena, grandstands of gum trees step neatly down from the hilltop’s dress circle of workers’ cottages. Long slender branches gloved in sunlight, rise and fall, as though breathing new life over the plateau.
snow clouds rush
across the valley
a light flickers
Dusk is my favourite time of day here. Quiet descends on the valley, today broken first by the yipping of a fox. A train sounds its horn in the distance. I find myself the third marker of white settlement this quiet evening. Soon dusk turns to twilight and trees become shadows. The only sound now is the wind, whispering through the gums, the gullies and the creek. Tonight a muted wind intones. Some nights it wails as though singing dirges for all that is lost. Evening is a timely reminder of all that has gone before.
I think of the spirits that inhabit this valley. The first human inhabitants here were Aborigines. For at least 14000 years, the Darug and Gundungurra people used The Gully as a traditional camp for respite from the summer heat. Their permanent settlements were in the valleys surrounding the plateau, now known as the Blue Mountains. When white settlers encroached on and claimed these valleys as their own The Gully became a permanent settlement for the Darug and Gundungurra tribes. White society’s fringe-dwellers, the impoverished, the displaced Chinese market gardeners, sought refuge here in the late 1800s and lived peaceably with the Aboriginal inhabitants. The families shared poverty, knowledge, food, water,
kinship and friendship. By the mid-1950s there were some seven extended families in The Gully community, living in about twenty shacks and huts. Others slept in tents or under the stars.
afternoon mist …
cracks in the old racetrack
spill native grasses
My yard is orderly and restrained. Across the fence the land is wild, disordered, uninhibited. Dense privet camouflages walking tracks lying beneath. Privet was introduced from China to Australia in the mid-1800s for use as a garden hedge. This noxious weed has escaped the confines of suburban back yards. Whilst it holds the clay and sandstone together to slow its erosion, it also dominates this part of The Gully. Trees hang heavy with fruit, as though overburdened. Purple-black, like bruises sitting just under the skin, these fruit are eager to canker this valley. Privet threatens to consume native flora in the same way that colonial enterprise consumed The Gully in 1957.
I crouch and crawl through privet tunnels, looking for a way over the paling fence and onto the bitumen of the disused racetrack. I can see where the fence is broken but cannot get through the gorse. Blackberry thorns snare me, as though holding me back. Vines weave and wend through privet and English ivy perhaps laying down traps for those with less than altruistic purposes.
I talk to the spirits. I promise to tread lightly on this earth. I wish them no harm.
I find a way through and head north on the racetrack towards Katoomba. At the first bend in the bitumen, on the outside, is a clear area. I close my eyes. My logical brain tells me someone has lived here, as do the history books. A terraced clearing spills native grasses, and climbs up the hill to the sounds of suburbia. This area is contained, rectangular, seemingly unwilling, or unable, to escape into the forest on either side. I sense a presence here, unearthly, but not frightening. My mind rushes with questions: who lived here and when? Were they forced out of The Gully? This landscape leaves so much unsaid.
Two rows of white gums form a windbreak on the northern slope of the clearing. They tilt to the west begging for winter sun. Silver spangled branches against deep blue sky. Halfway up, a cluster escapes. To the right of them stands a huge sandstone boulder. Too large for a house footing, I sense that this boulder is somehow significant to this landscape, an omniscient ziggurat looking out over the valley.
afternoon shadows
walking
in another’s footprints
A series of walking tracks connected families and homes in The Gully. Homes were well hidden to avoid interference by white authorities, especially where removal of Aboriginal children was feared. Some of these tracks exist today, though many are buried under bitumen and the detritus of white expansion. It is sometimes hard to distinguish walking tracks from animal trails.
At the northern end I follow a partially cleared trail that parallels the bitumen and branches in many directions. Invisible birdsong reverberates, perhaps as a warning, but their chatter seems more conversational than cautionary. Tree ferns and foliage brush my face. The scrub is denser the higher I climb. Chill air grips my chest, twists and releases. Old fence-posts lean and litter the earth. These fence-posts once signified a border between neighbours. No such colonial boundaries exist within The Gully today. From the hollow of a log crawls an ant, a symbol that nature is reclaiming its own.
In this clearing, just a few metres from the track, are the remains of a home. Four concrete footings, speckled with lichen, peer through the grasses that will one day consume them. I wonder whose home this was. A well-used cast iron firebox invokes a conflagration of emotions. I imagine a newborn taking its first breath by this fire. I picture crisp cotton sheets hung out to dry and wonder what secrets they kept. I think of The Gully families and their reliance upon, and interconnectedness with nature and each other. I let the forest speak to me. I get a sense of time and place here. How hard it must have been for The Gully residents to survive in this terrain despite its beauty. But they did until the imposition of colonial borders forced them to leave their beloved valley. For many, the only home they had ever known. Blue Mountains City Council dispersed the Darug and Gundungurra tribes into the greater white community. Many left the area. Colonial expansion effectively rendered the Traditional Owners of The Gully homeless, along with mainstream society’s outcasts.
hiking uphill …
a blackberry thorn
catches my sleeve
I hear water sounds, running water. The sound draws closer. Closer. I wonder if my ears are playing tricks on me, and if the sound is simply the rumbling of the nearby highway. Remains of an old timber fence lead uphill. The verdancy of the foliage intensifies. Veined maidenhairs touch me; pale and delicate in the shadows. Clumps of peat moss converge in mounds underfoot, lumpy with seedpods.
The track suddenly ends when it opens onto a miniature wetland. A sandstone wall arcs and then falls away into rainforest on either side. Water pours over the wall and settles in a small pool at its base. I wonder if this might be one of the wells I have read so much about, from which the Gully Residents drew water. This looks like a natural well to my untrained eye. There is only one track in and one track out.
The water is cold, icy cold, but invigorating not painfully cold. The bottom of the pool is sand, water-washed from the plateau over time. In my mind’s eye, I draw a straight line between the top of the wall and the edge of the pool to make a pyramid. I stand inside. I lean to the wall and let the mountain water flow soothingly over my hands. Above, the forest carves out of the sky. Trees protectively overhang the sandstone wall. I can now see why The Gully is called a hanging swamp. Dappled sunlight shimmers and settles on the tips of my eyelashes. The water carries the tint of the sandstone’s burnt umbers and ochres. Acutely aware that the Great Western Highway and all its smog are uphill from me somewhere, I choose not to drink. A rusty old mower angles out of the water, half-submerged in sand. This jolts me back to the harsh reality inflicted by colonisers on the area’s Traditional Owners.
The Gully is a place of continuous transition, an ongoing work-in-progress. It is a borderland; a shifting postcolonial landscape of belonging, alienation, dispossession, reclamation, oppression, kinship, hope and despair.
sandstone wall …
rivulets of water
on my hands
Tuesday 11 December 2012
Long Live Johnny
John Arvan
Underdale, SA
Near the land of Long Live Johnny
there dwelt a clock it’s said
That chimed away the days of youth
and filled the town with dread
65 65 65
Now Long Live Johnny was a soul
in tune with tempting time
Lived life with sense and revelry
Kept one eye on the prize
65 65 65
Time came.
Onto his timeless steed
did Johnny mount, and cried
‘It is my time you tick damn clock!!’
He lunged.
The clock fell quiet.
65 65 65
Now with each year that passes by
Long Johnny lives it up.
We celebrate with love, and cheer,
The man who stopped the clock.
Happy Birthday John
John’s good friend John lives life in defiance of his years. John wrote this poem to highlight his friend’s 65 year achievement.
Wednesday 12 December 2012
A Cruise From Hell
Peter Adams
Katoomba, NSW
It didn’t take long to realise I had made a huge mistake.
The frightening realisation that I was trapped for fourteen days with 2000 elderly people, set in as I queued at Sydney’s Overseas Terminal at Circular Quay to board the ‘Radiance of the Fleas’. Some were in wheel chairs, many carried walking sticks, and none appeared younger than 60 – and, as they stood in line, they were already in full flight about their ailments and medications.
/> I boarded this sea going Westfield Shopping Centre in Sydney on the 17th November and by the 18th I was ready to jump overboard and swim home.
A decent cup of coffee was the least of my problems.
Why is it that the Americans – who are obviously capable of designing and building a floating Septic Tank as ugly as this – still haven’t got the remotest clue about how to make a decent cup of coffee – but can still manage to serve it with such great charm and voices that would shatter glass?
By the 20th, I was making enquires about getting off and flying home.
I had hoped that somewhere on this floating hotel I would be able to find somewhere quiet to write. I assumed the library would be a good place to start.
That was my second mistake.
The library was little more than a pathetic cubby hole in the wall, furnished with some book shelves, a couple of chairs and coffee tables and a sign that read, ‘Please respect the other users of this library by maintaining quiet’.
The library was located on deck nine in the seven-storey atrium called ‘The Centrum’ – presumably named in Latin in an attempt to put some much needed good taste onto this ghastly shopping mall. Although the sign read ‘Please respect the other users of this library by maintaining quiet’, this library alcove was completely open to the nine glorious levels of the funnel shaped atrium and the endless and painful live performances taking place five floors below.
By the time the sound from any event taking place on deck four had travelled up to the library level, it had acquired that distinctive distorted echo of someone speaking with a mouthful of lamingtons – somewhat similar to that experienced in an airport.
So, without lifting your eyes from the pages of Moby Dick, it was possible to enjoy everything from a loud mumbled course in Japanese culinary arts, or kung-fu for octogenarians, or marvel at a toy horse race for idiots, or listen to a country and western band (most probably on loan from an Aussie country RSL club) playing tunes for boot scooters.
The entire ship was exposed from one end to the other by an endless nightmare of cheerful elevator music.
Strangely enough the quietest place was on deck 14 between 9 and noon, in the ‘Starfucked Disco’ – or whatever it was called. This was partly because the room was unused during that period – unless an art auction was taking place, which it did on four separate occasions during the 14 days – but also because I discovered how to remove the fuse from the PA system and toss it overboard.
Sadly the management had an endless supply of new fuses.
Between those hours I had the entire disco to myself and could pretend to be John Revolting from Dirty Dancing, or more importantly sit down and write.
Of the 2000 passengers approximately 40 were younger than 17, and of that number half were infants. Everyone else was 50+ with the majority appearing to be older than I am. They brought with them a large number of clicking teeth, pushy elbows, electric wheelchairs, an even greater number of Zimmer frames, attitude and a veritable forest of walking sticks.
It was hard to tell if the clicking and clattering emanating from the old dears was the sound of ill-fitting dentures or walking sticks on the marble floors outside the elevators.
There was a bank of seven cylindrical glass elevators at The Centrum, ingeniously appointed so you couldn’t see which elevator had arrived, until it made a pinging sound and was about to leave. At this point all the walking sticks, Zimmer frames and motorised wheelchairs would hobble in a mad clicking panic towards the closing doors.
Occasionally, one or two managed to squeeze into the already overstuffed car before the doors closed. Sometimes only their Zimmer frames made it aboard and their owners remained abandoned outside, clinging to each other, until the same elevator returned and they could retrieve their appliances.
This sometimes took several hours.
As this performance was repeated on every one of the 13 floors the elevators serviced, the clicking and clattering could continue into the early hours. And quite often, by the time the passenger had finally boarded, the function they were going to had long finished, or they hadn’t got a clue what they are doing in the elevator in the first place.
This was usually resolved by pressing all 13 buttons at once in the vain hope that seeing something familiar would remind them why they boarded the ship – let alone where they were going, or indeed why they were in the elevator.
The ship’s designers added to their confusion by daily changing large terrazzo panels in the floor of the elevators, inset with the different days of the week. Before these old ducks realised – around day 12 – that the elevators were in fact travelling calendars, they assumed that each of the seven elevators were named after different day of the week.
‘We got out of Thursday Martha, and turned left, I distinctly remember turning left’. A reasonable assumption. But as all the cars had the same name, turning left could mean that Martha could end up shuffling towards the engine room at the opposite end of a ship four football fields long.
It was not unusual to find your way blocked behind a slowly travelling conga line of zimmer frames attached to ancient biddies heading for somewhere they had forgotten. The ship’s propellers, incidentally, were at the pointy end.
One wheel chair bound, constantly complaining, large English lady with a very plumby Joyce Grenville voice and overblown everything – affectionately referred to around the ship as ‘The Dutchess’ – found this to be a great comfort because she at least knew what day it was – and made a point of telling everyone. Endlessly.
She seemed to enjoy filling an entire elevator for the sheer joy of it – and would explain to anyone prepared to listen just how bad her breakfast had been – before announcing that she looked upon the elevator ‘as my peer-sonal calendeh’ and that the lettering in the floor was ‘changed by some coloured person every-a day-a’.
The rest of us simply drew comfort from knowing the day of the week, and the realisation that once we entered this twilight zone at breakfast time, were resigned to the fact that we might arrive by teatime on the following day.
I abandoned the quest for a vacant elevator and got fit by using the stairs.
There were, however, two things the Seppos got right on this floating septic tank: the food at the two free restaurants was excellent, and the staff were super attentive – 65 nationalities were represented in the crew.
With 1000 staff and 2000 guests, we had a half an employee each. I selected a quiet bit – the bottom half of a Turkish chappie called Abdul – for my bit. If only he (and his 999 compatriots) would just stop saying good morning every time they passed me, I might grow to like the top half as well.
In fact with 1000 happy smiling staff people asking you ‘How are you?’ every couple of minutes, my voice grew a little hoarse from replying ‘I am fucking wonderful thank you’.
I think if I ever took another cruise on an American ship, I might save my voice and keep a permanent sign around my neck with the words, ‘Thank you’, ‘I am very well’, and ‘piss off’ – and I would just point to which ever was most relevant.
The food and staff they got right but everything else in this gin palace involved an additional cost.
For example, it cost $150 to take a guided tour through the engine room, up to $45 for a glass of champagne and $7 for bottled water – the stuff coming out of the tap was purified sea water and had an odd taste – which might explain the curious taste of the coffee. Paying for alcohol was fair enough – but with a cup of undrinkable Starbucks coffee costing $4 – everyone quickly swapped to drinking tea.
The coffee was so bad in fact, that the predominantly Australian passengers made a run on English Breakfast tea bags and the ship – without a word of a lie – ran out of tea bags by day three! This was a situation that wasn’t rectified by the end of the cruise.
There were plenty of Chamomile, Jasmine and Lemon Grass tea bags on offer, but I bought my own supply of Ceylon tea bags and had planned to se
ll them at $1 each.
And so it goes.
Deciding to ‘take a shore excursion’ by coach was a truly bizarre experience and there were many to chose from. Everything from visiting a sheep farm, to visiting a farm with animals.
Usually a few sheep were involved somewhere.
First all the anticipated checks took place – where men and women in ill fitting navy blue suits, arm bands, military badges and day glow vests, match shipboard passes with driver licences (but seldom with the faces standing opposite them), then as you gently waddle down to the bottom of the gangplank behind a zimmer frame, the ship’s photographic team would offer everyone a themed photographic opportunity – for a palm crossed with twenty five dollars worth of silver.
Naturally, these shipboard events differed from port to port, but on the New Zealand run I encountered fully grown men wearing furry costumes representing kangaroos, Captain Cook, flightless birds, lumberjacks and an American version of a (sic) ‘Koala Bear’.
I doubt if anyone caught on, or even cared, but in reality the koala was an American Brown Bear which had been modified by adding a furry pouch to the front.
I elected to take one tour, to the Maritime Museum in Wellington.
A young, efficient and fast walking guide from the Maritime Museum took our tickets – which cost nearly $80 each – and led us on the 500 yard walk to the entrance to the museum. This short distance would usually have been covered in a few minutes, except she had to allow for two short ten minute breaks allowing an elderly couple sharing a single Zimmer frame to catch up. One was walking forward and acting as a navigator, while the other walked in reverse – most of the time. Occasionally she forgot where she was going, and started walking forwards whereupon a tussle would ensue and they would end up making circles for a while.
We covered the 500 years in thirty minutes, by which time the exertion had proved to be too much for several cases of incontinence, and the two single toilets located at the ground floor were suddenly in great demand for the emptying colostomy bags. I heard the tour guide mumble under her breath, ‘This is like herding a flock of sheep’.
You just couldn't get away from sheep on these tours …
Neptune met us at the front gate, complete with his plywood trident which he had made himself, all wrapped up in Alfoil; he was to be our guide around the museum this day.
Sandwiched between a school tour of third grade chattering children and the owner of the Zimmer frame, it was a little difficult to hear Neptune’s well-rehearsed story about his costume. However, I later discovered that his mother – an avid supporter of the All Blacks and an honorary life member of the Wellington WI – had taken many hours to sew his seaweed cloak using strips of fabric torn from her late husband’s collection of maritime pyjamas.
The noise inside the bright, echoing walls of the Maritime Museum was so deafening, I quietly advised Neptune that I would be leaving the tour and spent a couple of happy hours exploring the galleries on my own.
I discovered later that an unbooked ticket into the gallery was $15, and $9 for a concession.
So much for my $80!
Would I take another cruise? Probably not, but if I did it certainly wouldn’t be with an American cruise line – for those who may remember, it was a bit like being at a Butlins Holiday Camp.
I was very fortunate it was a present from someone!
Thursday 13 December 2012
Hippolito
Shey Saint-Malo
Parkerville, WA
Paul seeped in with the first rain. From under the April shower he appeared through the doorway and reclined against the fretted brickwork of the cafe, scanning the heterogeneous Beaufort Street crowd of business-suited short blacks, cape-cardiganed lattes and eyebrow-jewelled cinos-to-go. I’d sat for an hour on that Saturday morning reading a tattered copy of ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ when a rising bitter spiral of muddy grounds caused me to gag and fall under his surveillance. I tried not to look back as I rose to order another drink.
Amid the cacophony of ceramics, personalised ring tones and rain on the tin roof, I stirred my sugarless coffee until a rhythm emerged linking together the disparate life noise. While the rain eased into drizzle until long droplets hung like diet mozzarella from the window panes, sound bytes of conversation, cushioned into brief wafts of silence, slid by me.
‘... but just hear me out ...’
‘... who left you with the large black ...’
‘... those L-shaped chaise sofas ...’
‘... and if it did, you wouldn’t want ...’
‘Why do you do that?’ A close-up voice interrupted my long black and shot of milk on the side.
‘Excuse me?’ I asked. Arabica-bean eyes gazed down at me and their softness overrode the asymmetry of his nose – a boxer’s nose, I thought on first impression. One damp ginger ringlet sprung loose, dangling over his forehead. He persisted.
‘If you want black coffee, why do you need a milk standby? Just take a chance and leave off the training wheels.’ In a half hula, he manoeuvred into the chair opposite.
Usually, as soon as I have examined a stranger’s eyes, my attention falls straight to their feet as if they may impart some important information or hidden character trait. Each toe starts to resemble a face, the set of ten revealing the complete range of faces exhibited by an individual over their life time. At times I think a person’s composite toe face matches their actual facial features but just as often I am surprised at the contrast. Paul’s feet were slender and symmetrical, unlike his nose, and each toe had large, rounded smooth nails like honest open faces. One big toenail was painted with glittery black polish about which he explained how his friend Kylie’s little girl loved to paint his toenails when he visited their home.
Reaching into his shirt pocket, he withdrew a red and gold foiled Easter egg and presented it to me. It was semi-melted from his body heat but we shared it and chatted, and I drank my coffee black.
An hour later we were still there, sharing a bowl of black olive tapenade and ciabatta. By mid-afternoon I had a sense that we’d known each other before. Maybe that’s why I stayed talking to him instead of turning up to my nephew’s fifth birthday party. When the cafe crowd thinned the surrounding conversations became audible and we listened, contributing in whispers, arbitrating the world’s issues.
Outside the rain had stopped so we walked the long way back to our cars. In Hyde Park the swans and ducks aired their wings as they skidded on top of the lake. When the rain started again we threw off our sodden shoes and joined the ducks in the water where the mud squelched between our toes. Bright bands of green, yellow and violet sent the darkened sky to background. Our friendship began that way – a contrast of darkness and colour.
Winter fostered intense discussions punctuated by Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen by Paul’s open fire place. After too many glasses of red wine, Paul made us strong Italian espresso. Between sips, he recounted episodes from a previous life, how his ex used to wake in the morning screaming at him for reasons he never understood. He would grow quiet at the mention of his son from whom he’d been estranged by law. And he would lean into me then and rest his head on my chest, one hand on my breast absent-mindedly, telling me how much he valued the platonic thing we had going, especially since the friendship he had with his friend Kylie had ended so abruptly and without explanation.
Occasionally, we would meet during my lunch hour. One day I received his call at work asking me to a picnic lunch he had planned for that same day. It was all arranged but I’d needed more notice. When I said I was too busy and couldn’t take two hours off work just like that, Paul became frustrated and accused me of being too inside my head, lecturing that I needed to loosen up and stop worrying about responsibility and authority so much. I gave in and met him in the park beside the lake. He was there waiting with a basket and a rug and for two hours we ate prosciutto and melon out of season, blinis with smoked salmon and sour cream and drank chardonnay. r />
The following night he called me after ten o’clock, demanding that I come to visit him immediately. His voice was halting and the phrases came in bursts, increasing in intensity. Already his need was exhausting me. I said it was too late but that I’d come the next day and we could talk about it then. Impossible, was his reply, tomorrow would be too late, he had cut a snake into his arm with a pocket knife and wanted to make more cuts. Why couldn’t I, just for once, do as he asked? There was no one else he could tell.
Approaching his house, the light from the verandah was turned outwards and blinded my way. I bumped into the large ceramic pot, knocking a branch off his Dracaena, Side-show Bob. Paul named all his plants according to what inspired him on any particular day. Each time I visited he had a new name for his cat. That day she was Bronte and I called her Tigger by mistake when Paul opened the door. If I’d visited more often I would have known that.
On the table was a letter he had written to his parents in Victoria, returned without response. Paul asked me to read it because it contained a secret he wanted to tell me but couldn’t manage to repeat the story out loud. He’d tried to explain to his family that it wasn’t his fault, and that circumstances had given a false picture, and that it was all a misunderstanding. Denials were made but not accepted. Maybe I could come up with an idea.
Babysitting his niece, Melanie, is always a pleasure, they get along so well. But a shift occurred that plagues him to this day. Perhaps it’s being fourteen that causes her to invent scenarios just as she had used it to convince him to let her stay up very late and wear her mother’s make up and high heels. He likes to indulge her fantasies and games and told her she looked grown up. As usual she watches a chick flick while he burns dinner then gives up and orders a pizza. Tamilo, a friend, turns up at the door. Apparently he has a new job at Pizza Hut and his shift has just finished so Paul invites him in. Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have accepted the joint but he didn’t smoke much, leaving most of it to Tamilo. And he knows that he shouldn’t have fallen asleep on Melanie but she didn’t seem to mind. She fell asleep too and woke crying but Paul stroked her hair for a while until she was fine again. Melanie has nightmares – everyone knows that. A fist in close range blocks his vision and, when he opens his eyes next, his father is telling him to leave the family home and never return. He frogmarches toward his suitcase, packed and waiting on the doorstep, and drips blood from his nose on the verandah and down the path. Now, all he wants is to complete the patchwork and he remembers more every day. Soon he’ll have the answers. Unreliable as ever though, Tamilo remains uncontactable, unavailable to verify the events of that night.
Emerging from the kitchen, espresso maker still gurgling, Paul stopped in front of me and poured it black and strong. I was still holding the letter when I glanced down at his socks, distracted by one big toe wiggling, and then back to the page. It was handwritten and it occurred to me that I had never seen Paul’s handwriting before. When I looked up at him, he was pacing and I watched on, trying to read that which was missing from the letter as he tracked a stretched figure eight across the carpet. Not knowing where to start, I commented that I’d not heard him mention this absent friend and asked how he knew him. Troy ... Troy – he thought he knew the guy but obviously you can never really know anyone. When I explained that I was referring to Tamilo, he snorted and said he’d decided not to call him that anymore. In fact, he didn’t deserve a name at all.
He scratched at his arm and the red tail of his crudely-drawn snake slid into view. I put down the letter and suggested that he call his parents and talk instead but he was shaking his head before I’d even finished the sentence. They’d simply hang up as they’d done several times already. In any case, he needed to remember exactly what happened first and asked me to prompt him with suggestions since I was always the thinker. At that moment, the black toenail invaded my thoughts, only fleetingly, and I realised that it matched his face – an inner face. I said it was too late, that I was tired and would have to think about it some more. And I drove home. The next morning I called Telstra to change my phone number and wondered also if my name had been changed.
Friday 14 December 2012
The Spirit Of The Thing
AB
Kanimbla, NSW
The servants buzzed around the dining room rushing to bring last minute dishes. The table groaned under the weight of the best silver. Enough chairs were brought for a dozen hungry relatives. On the heavy, oak sideboard, a large silver platter rested beside a tray of spirits.
‘Well, here we are! All ready?’ the silver Sole asked gaily, lying back on a bed of green garnish.
‘I suppose so.’ Beside him, the bottled Spirit sighed bleakly.
The Sole laughed. We’ve been well “plaiced” to see the party get underway. I don’t know about you but I’m “breaming” with goodwill and cheer. Ah, the life and sole of the party, that’s me.’
His companion groaned. ‘Always one for the puns.’
The Sole smirked. ‘Don’t tell me you’re fed up to the “gills” with my frivolity.’
‘No,’ the Spirit sighed. ‘As long as I can see clearly, I don’t mind. Sometimes, you’re very punny. Ha ha! You see? I can be humorous.’
Together the large, silver Sole and the lugubrious Spirit in the bottle watched as the guests arrived for the mandatory birthday dinner.
‘I notice the party has started: squashed together in the vestibule like sardines, and already drinking like fish. Smart set,’ the Sole murmured, watching them with his glassy eye.
‘Snappy dressers, too. Except, of course, for that old trout in the corner.’
‘Yes, I’ve been watching her,’ the Spirit replied heavily. ‘Thinks everyone is calculating how many breaths she has left.’
‘They are,’ the Sole said. ‘She’ll be eighty in a few hours. And she’s learned by bitter experience that “where there’s a Will, there’s a relative”. In her case, there are many minnows circling. I’d say she feels filleted by life, wouldn’t you?’ the Sole asked archly. ‘Gaiety has passed her by: I find her perfume depressing. Is it Poison or Chanel No. 5? For myself, I prefer “Parfum Poisson” or “Irrigation Channel No. 6”. But let’s talk about something, anything else.’
‘Let’s talk about the meaning of life, my old friend Sole.’
‘Ah! Something light then!’ The Sole sighed resigned: deep conversations were something he’d studiously avoided.
‘So you’re not interested in the meaning of life?’
‘The meaning of life?’ the Sole repeated askance. ‘I thought it was obvious: slip unobtrusively through the waters until you’re hooked. Then leave the shrimps to carry on after you. Or, in your case, spend your life fermenting until your essence is purified and you’re bottled.’
‘Scotch that idea, Sole. There has to be more to it than that.’
‘I thought it was a rum idea,’ the Sole grinned. ‘Say, have I told you my favourite book?’
‘No! I suppose it doesn’t have much to do with the meaning of life, does it?’
‘Hardly. You’ll never guess. It’s “Tequila Mockingbird”. Get it?’
‘Oh dear! I need a drink.’
‘Wahoo!’ the Sole shrilled. ‘You are in a wobbegong mood, my mournful friend.’
‘But life?’ the Spirit resumed. ‘What of that?’
‘Oh, do stop carping,’ the Sole sighed. ‘I’m trying to think.’
‘Are you really?’ the Spirit asked hopefully. ‘Are you sure you’re not being a piker?’
‘I’m trying my best,’ the Sole murmured. ‘I was never in a school of fish, you know. And we never swam with anything deep like sea bream: too far out. Maybe that’s why I’m so shallow: that’s where I grew up, you know – in the shallows.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose you think I’m a bit of a flake?’
‘Not at all,’ the Spirit said. ‘I suppose I can’t expect answers at my time of life.’
The Sole said quietly, ‘Don’t
be dispirited, my friend. Please! Not everybody works out the meaning of life before there isn’t any. I mean, look at us. You’re about to be drunk and I’m about to be eaten. Ha! We don’t have much time left for the deepest philosophical question ever asked.’
The Spirit was silent for what seemed an age. Then he said, ‘So you don’t think we need to know the meaning of life before …?’
‘Before “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”? Oh no! It’s enough that we live being the best we can. Don’t you feel that, my friend?’
Again there was a deep silence.
‘Yes,’ the Spirit replied at last, his voice sounding lighter and more cheerful. ‘I do believe you’re right, friend Sole. To live, being the best we can. Yes! I believe we may have discovered the meaning of life after all.’
As the platter was removed from the sideboard, the Sole called back, ‘That’s the Spirit!’
The glass bottle was opened. The Spirit was poured to be shared among the many.
Neither Sole nor Spirit was lost as they mingled in the depths of the guests and were once more transformed.
AB says that redesigning the phrase ‘the soul and the spirit’ into something else was a fun challenge and that she enjoys a twist in the tale!
Saturday 15 December 2012 8 pm
Girl In The Garden
Shane Smithers
Katoomba, NSW
As the storm raged a girl strolled in Katherine’s garden, sheltered only by an umbrella. Her lack of clothing only served to accentuate her beauty and increase her mystique. Her milky skin drew the perfect contrast to the deep green foliage. Katherine beckoned to her from the window, but she did not come. The rain swirled, fell sideways, lashing the girl’s every curve.
Katherine stood at the door, opened her umbrella and hurried into the storm. The ground was sodden underfoot. The girl sat on a garden chair, raised her knees and perched her heels on the edge of the seat. It wasn’t the most modest of postures, but she didn’t seem to care.
‘As much as I appreciate you beautifying my garden, I think you should come in out of the cold.’
‘Is it cold?’ she asked. ‘I don’t feel cold.’ The girl’s nipples stood erect and goose bumps gave texture to her silky skin.
‘You look cold.’ Katherine paused. ‘I can bring you some clothes if you don’t want to come inside.’
‘All right, I’ll come in and get warm,’ she said as though it hardly mattered.
Katherine smiled reassuringly.
‘You can have a hot shower if you like. I’ll get you a towel.’
‘Thank you. That would be nice.’
She followed Katherine through the rain. They lowered their umbrellas and stepped into the warmth.
‘It must be cold out. It feels like a furnace in here,’ said the girl.
‘Yes it is quite cold outside. The bathroom is this way.’ Katherine pointed to a fresh towel and closed the door behind her.
Three minutes later Katherine heard the water turn off, she grabbed some clothes and was heading to the bathroom when she saw the girl standing naked in the living room. ‘That was quick.’
‘I didn’t want to use all of your hot water.’
‘Oh, you should have taken your time.’ Katherine handed her some clothes.
‘Oh thanks, do you mind if I sit down?’
‘Please do.’
The girl sat down placing the clothing beside her on the lounge. ‘It’s a nice house you have here.’
‘Thank you,’ said Katherine a little surprised that her guest hadn’t put the clothes on. ‘Would you like a cup of tea or something else perhaps?’
‘Tea would be nice, thank you.’
The rain fell as the sun surrendered for another day. Katherine poured water from the kettle into a china teapot, turned it several times and then poured two cups. She returned from the kitchen with a tray.
‘You are different from last time I saw you,’ said Katherine.
‘Am I?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Was I wearing clothes last time you saw me?’
‘I think so. I think I would have remembered if you were naked.’
‘Naked, not nude?’
‘Is there a difference?’ asked Katherine.
‘Nude is what we are when we’re born, what we are under our clothes, innocent, pure. Naked is undressed, uncovered.’
‘I see,’ said Katherine a little confused. ‘So are you nude or are you naked?’
‘That depends on you,’ she smiled. ‘As far as I’m concerned I’m nude, but you might think I’m naked, I’m not sure. It’s not necessarily up to me.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No. Not entirely.’ She paused. ‘I could be naked if you like, it’s up to you.’
You can’t be more than 22 or 23, thought Katherine, as she took a sip of her tea. ‘You’re very beautiful.’
‘So are you. I think you are far more beautiful than me.’
Katherine blushed. ‘Oh no, you’re so pretty and you have a lovely figure.’
‘Maybe I am naked,’ mused the girl.
‘I must admit, that I’m a little confused.’
The girl shifted in her seat, allowing her legs to fall open a little. Katherine couldn’t help looking. You certainly are naked. I can see your pussy, thought Katherine. The girl watched Katherine’s eyes fall and linger. Katherine noticed a little smile when she looked up. The girl opened her legs a little wider, rocking one knee from side to side rhythmically. Katherine couldn’t help stealing another glance.
The girl’s smile widened. ‘The more I think about it, the more I think I might be naked, rather than nude.’
‘I think you might be right,’ said Katherine.
‘There is one way to be sure,’ said the girl.
‘There is?’
‘Yes, all you need to do is take your clothes off.’
‘You want me to take my clothes off?’
‘If you want to.’
‘If I want to?’
‘Yes, if you want to take your clothes off, I would like you too. If you don’t want to take them off, I don’t want you too. I only want you to be comfortable.’
‘How will me taking my clothes off resolve our little dilemma?’
‘Well, if we are both free of clothes, we will be able to figure out if we are naked or nude.’
‘How?’
‘If we want to be undressed together we will be naked, if not, we will be two nude people drinking tea.’
‘Undressed? Isn’t that just a euphemism for being naked?’
‘Well, that is kind of the point. It’s not a euphemism for being nude. Therefore, if we are undressed together we will be naked not nude.’
The girl smiled, rocked her knee from side to side, opening and closing her legs, then leant back in the lounge and stretched her arms above her head. Her breasts rose and flattened as she stretched. Katherine took a deep breath. God you’re stunning, your breasts are so perky and smooth and the way your areolas pucker is – oh my – and your nipples are just perfect. Katherine took another sip of her tea.
‘Do you want me to?’ asked Katherine.
‘It might be nice,’ she cooed. ‘I think you want to.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes, I think so. You keep touching your hair and wetting your lips, but it’s the fact that you have rubbed your hands up and down your thighs more than once that makes me think you want to.’
‘You’re probably right, it just feels a little funny, that’s all.’
‘If you feel funny about taking your clothes off, you’ll definitely be naked not nude.’
‘Right.’
‘So then, are you going to?’ She let her arms fall to her lap, traced a finger along her landing strip and then said, ‘I can help you if you want. We would definitely be naked if I helped you get undressed.’
‘Would you kiss me when you helped me get undressed?’ asked Katherine.
?
??I might.’
‘I just think it would feel silly, if you didn’t.’
‘I will kiss you if it makes you feel better about me helping you.’
‘Okay then,’ said Katherine.
The girl stood up and walked around the coffee table to where Katherine sat. Still holding her tea cup, Katherine looked up at her, at her breasts and smiled. Slowly she leaned forward and placed the cup on the table. Her face was only inches from the girl’s body, from her tummy, her landing strip and the moisture that gathered in the furrow between her legs. Her pheromones were intoxicating. Katherine’s pulse increased, she looked up into her lovely green eyes.
The girl took Katherine’s hand, stepped back and pulled her up. As soon as Katherine was on her feet the girl kissed her, sweetly at first, then more deeply. Katherine’s cardigan fell from her shoulders. The button on her skirt was undone and the zip lowered. Her skirt fell to the floor. Katherine returned the girl’s kiss, their lips sliding hungrily over one another. The girl brushed the hair from Katherine’s face, holding her and kissing her more passionately. Katherine slipped her thumbs into the elastic of her waistband and slipped her white satin pants down her thighs.
Katherine could hardly contain her desire. Her hands followed the girl’s curves, around her waist, over her bottom and up to her shoulders. The girl didn’t object. Their breathing was heavier now, rasping, between feverish kisses. The girl hurried to unbutton Katherine’s blouse, then her hand raced to the clasp on her bra, undoing it in an instant. First her blouse and then her bra was discarded. Katherine broke their kiss, only to fall upon the girl’s neck, kissing, her tongue tracing the line of her neck, licking her soft skin.
A moan escaped the girl’s lips as she lifted Katherine’s knee wrapping her leg around her waist. The girl ran her hand along Katherine’s thigh, caressing her bottom, following that divide down and forward.
‘That feels so nice,’ gasped Katherine.
They kissed again, lips sliding, mouths sucking, teeth nipping playfully as they embraced.
‘I think we definitely are naked,’ said the girl.
‘Yes, definitely naked,’ said Katherine almost breathlessly.
The girl’s deft fingers traced Katherine’s lips, lingered and teased her just enough to inspire a change of location. They bumped into things on the way to the bedroom, knocking a hat stand over. Sleep was a long time coming. In the morning they woke in each other’s arms, nude.
Shane says this piece was inspired by a black and white photograph of a woman sitting naked/nude holding an umbrella. The photograph was artistic, the woman elegant and the subject well captured. Like all good art, it made Shane think.
Sunday 16 December 2012
Ambiguous Loss
Susan Fielding
Wantirna South, Vic
dying embers
passions long spent
linger repentantly on the grate of life.
heat expended
heart in arrest
a protracted passing leads to relentless uncertainty.
sorrow picks its way
over smouldering coals
hesitant without a corpse.
unverified death
conflicting perceptions
frontrunners to emotional exhaustion.
no codified event
clear cut surrender
grief frozen in obsession.
mourning masked
complicated closure
no entombment to mark the calendar.
resisting extinction
demanding more grace
clawing for resuscitation that cannot revive.
denial dancing
on the empty grave
an absence presence only contradicts.
the human spirit
rebellious to relinquish without certification
ambiguity ambushes our loss.
Sunday 16 December 2012 4 pm
Sense Of Life
Kylie Abecca
Port Albany, WA
All alone, I sit, I stare,
Bare walls of fate stand boldly there,
All my feelings on the wall,
Strip their skins and show to all,
My fear and courage draw their swords,
While hope and loss hide in drawers,
Packed away all nice and tight,
I let out more of trouble and fright,
Pain and comfort sit on their own,
While excitement and boredom sigh and groan,
Embarrassment and pride are put away,
And love and hate come out to play,
I close my eyes and breathe in deep,
Relief and worry stand close and weep,
I turn my head and walk away,
Leaving them there to fight and play,
Shame and guilt walk close behind,
Regret and anger sit down to unwind,
My walk breaks out into a run,
I keep on going, face into the sun,
Suddenly I feel I’m free,
That’s all I want to stay with me,
I close my eyes and go to sleep,
But feelings are something you always keep,
They’ll be back, that I know,
I’ll never be able to let them go,
Whatever life may have in store,
I’ll need them here forever more,
I trust in them to return,
The respect they get, they surely earn,
For now I sleep and dream of them,
When I awake, they’ll be here again.
Monday 17 December 2012
Bleeding Bark
Heather Harrison
Noranda, WA
Driving with a one-handed confidence, tapping the driver’s door along with the pop-rock-country hybrid hit. The last set of traffic lights along Great Northern Highway changed green to amber, and she accelerated through them, the back window lighting up red through the fog.
Fog eddying up from the river, covering Yagan Bridge and half its road. Swirling around the car bonnet, and caught in the headlights. She fumbled for the high beam, the heightened light only serving to make the fog thicker. Hesitating, she switched back to the headlights.
Driving along, she concentrates. After passing the river the fog soon lightens. Driving through the last minute swirl, she reverts to the high beam. The sharp light hurls itself far away and lights the highway and the peripheral brown, gravelly shoulders. If not for the occasional truck and car, she could be the only person around. The only one left in the world. She welcomes the solitude, her mind wandering as she speeds along. The wide highway is surrounded by bush and occasional acreages of settled land, and its monotony is deceptive to many drivers, especially those who aren’t locals. But she has learnt to drive along it, and is familiarised with its few bends and gravelled edges. The couple of years experience driving along the lonely road has entitled her to this sense of confidence.
A splintery static spits forth from the speakers, interference from the radio. Scoffing her irritation, she snaps the radio off, and her attention is redirected. On the opposite side of the road, a flash catches her attention. Squinting into the darkness, she sees a young pale figure, waving and trying to flag her down. Surely not much older than herself. Her hesitation takes her foot off the accelerator, slowing, caught off guard. Her pale skin is illuminated by the high beam, she’s dressed in a simple dress and a some sort of wrap cardigan, despite the nightly chill, and her legs and arms are pallid. She looks oddly familiar but unplaced. Maybe an alumnus from the year below her? The familiarity picked at her mind, irritating little nicks and stitches.
She forces herself to exhale the breath that she had only then realised she had been holding. Glancing into her rear view mirror, and unsurprisingly seeing nothing, steers into the shoulder of the highway, numerable meters past the figure. The brake lights illuminate the road and gravelled shoulder a blackened burgundy.
Beside is the gumt
ree she usually marks as the halfway point of her journeys homeward. Its ashy white-grey bark stained with crimson. Bleeding trails of sap, revealing the resilient totem’s hidden fault and vulnerability.
Putting the car into park, she turned her head back toward the road, and found her face engulfed in an otherworldly brightness. White light blinding her corneas, she blinked; in an instant, the road train soared and rattled past her. She felt insignificant in its enormity, its power solidly rocking her car. Rattled, she breathed heavily, her knuckles white against the steering wheel.
She turns again, squinting for the pale figure. One hand hovers over the door handle, the other still clutching the steering wheel. There, further back along the shoulder, further away from the road than she’d previously thought. She steps out and stares into the dim shadows, trying to focus on the figure on the side of the shoulder. Her hand outreached shatters the darkness.
The cry, “Oh thank God”, echoes in the empty space. The night seems quietly devoid of the noisy traffic that a highway should embody, but after all, this is Australia and furthermore not exactly some people’s ideas of civilisation. The fringes of civilisation, as the joke goes.
Stepping across the road, her senses seem in overdrive. With her steps, she feels the heat from the day still radiating from the bitumen beneath her feet. Alert. Adrenaline coursing through her. She hears the subtle crunch of her reaching the road’s shoulder, and the taciturn night around her.
Her confusion pulls her at face, furrowing, lines etching her brow and surrounding her eyes. She stares at her feet, the off-point finally connecting in her mind, that her feet are bare. They are as pale as the rest of her, but smudged with something else. Stained. The dark sickly colour starkly contrasts with the white.
She finds herself involuntarily taking a step back, grazing the smooth, ashen bark of the tree beside her, if only a moment late.