narratorAUSTRALIA Volume Two

  ~~~

  The birth was in the middle of winter and it did not go well for all concerned. Vie and Eric did their best. There were complications beyond their limited experience and so much blood. Mary’s screaming with unspeakable pain triggered clear images of dead and bloody bodies of the Somme. Eric gagged, as the images of the past resurfaced and hammered his imagination. The emotional wrenching of his past linking with absurd accuracy and conditions of the present unnerved him. Their hands and clothes were soaked in blood.

  ‘Oh my God! No! No!’ Vie screamed and collapsed into a chair tears streaming down her face.

  Eric was speechless looking hard at the two lifeless bodies on the bed. Mary and the baby were milk white. He had seen so many lifeless bodies during the war that this incident contained little reason for emotion but he was shocked at this crazy tragic outcome.

  After awhile he whispered, ‘What are we going to do? How are we going to explain this?’ There was an underlying tenor of panic and disbelief in his questions as he anticipated that people in authority and the police would be involved.

  It was a long time before Vie was able to speak rationally.

  It was 2 o’clock in the morning when Eric watched as her face hardened with a grimace that reflected her resolve to do something to overcome their predicament.

  ‘Get your mattock and shovel.’

  ‘What the hell … are we going to bury them? Where?’ Eric was now in a panic.

  ‘Go and get the tools!’ Vie shouted hysterically. ‘Get the tools!’

  Eric quickly moved and returned with the mattock and shovel. Vie took them and carried them.

  They were a strange, sad group as they crossed the shoreline of the lake and walked in the darkness to almost the centre of the lake. Vie used the torch sparingly to reduce the opportunity of detection. Eric carried the bodies of Mary and the baby wrapped in a blood stained sheet.

  ‘Here is as good as anywhere!’ Vie yelled at Eric. ‘Start digging. We don’t have a lot of time.’

  Eric dug furiously, pushed on by a fear of discovery.

  ‘It needs to be deep,’ Vie said almost offhandedly.

  When he finished, Eric was perspiring profusely from exertion and fear. They deliberately flattened the earth with the back of the shovel to make the site less obvious.

  They returned to the shack, collected all the dirty clothing and bedclothes and burnt them in a fierce fire of eucalypt logs and tea tree cuttings at the back of the shack.

  Eric’s sentinel ritual at the shoreline was initiated not long after this fateful night.

  Nobody came seeking the whereabouts of Mary. Eric and his mother never spoke of the matter again.

  Many years later the lake caught some water and the lake filled and Eric disbanded his nightly ritual at the shoreline. He still wondered how he would explain that night if anybody asked, as he still did not understand why they did it different.

  Thursday 17 January 2013

  Experimental Existential

  Amber Johnson

  Annerley, QLD

  How important can one claim to be

  in a world where seven billion others

  live on the same planet, breathe the same air,

  and strive to excel in every aspect?

  There just isn’t room for people like me

  absolutely (un)extraordinary.

  I know that, from the moment I was born,

  I was doomed for mediocrity.

  I live in a tempestuous ghetto

  where the only salvation from the darkness

  is the feeble glow of the waning moon

  and the art of being invisible.

  Countless men exchange paper for pills,

  while wanton women work the corners.

  Crime and promiscuity runs rampant

  so I shut my door and ignore it.

  My house isn’t much better than out there.

  Deadlocks on each door, the wrought iron gates,

  cracked plaster, mouldy walls, broken chairs,

  and steel mesh windows so you can’t escape.

  There’s instant ramen for dinner again

  and re-runs of Seinfield and The Simpsons.

  To wash down the shit I have swallowed,

  a cheap bag of goon will do the trick.

  No matter how severely I fuck up,

  There is always someone worse-off than I.

  In that sense, averageness is a blessing

  at least that’s what I tell myself at night.

  Music blares through paper-thin walls.

  Once an annoyance, now my lullaby.

  I lay on the futon, goon sack in hand,

  and try to travel to a better place.

  Each night a chariot takes me away

  to an august land of which I am king.

  Riches, fame, unattainable things

  are all within reach once the sandman dreams.

  Friday 18 January 2013

  Counting

  Rob Kennedy

  Glebe, NSW

  Samuel Peeps counted everything.

  As he walked, he counted his footsteps. Sometimes this got him into trouble and sometimes, his counting disease won him a fortune. Sometimes, both at the same time.

  Concentrating on the numbers, more than the direction he was heading, once he fell down a hole while going to the shops. He successfully sued his council for not putting up the proper signage around the hole they had been digging.

  Samuel Peeps lived by himself. He had to. His counting drove everyone mad, including himself. In the mornings, he would sit and count every grain of cereal in his breakfast bowl. It took him a long time to do anything. Each breakfast was soggy and unappealing.

  As he did the washing and hung out his clothes, he counted the pegs. Again, when he brought them in. Then folding socks, everything in twos.

  Samuel Peeps wrote. He would count every word. Until he realised his word processor did the counting for him. He sat and looked at this counting machine. He thought, ‘That’s me. I’m a counting machine, but I can’t turn it off, like I can do with this.’ Every day he wrote and every day he counted the words until there was enough. He finally turned off the counter on his processor – he didn’t like the competition.

  Even in his sleep, he counted, but not sheep. He counted the crazed wild memories and visions in his dreams, even the ones that weren’t his. He counted the number of times he had sex, 12,946; all but two were in his dreams.

  Samuel Peeps counted his age. He was 42 plus one, one year. He lived at 63 Third Street. At 42, plus one, he imagined that this is where he got his counting disease. Living on a street without a name. ‘Third is not a name,’ he said to himself. ‘No one in the world has the surname of Third.’ Then, he imagined, what if they did? Imagine the ribbing they would cop. Mr and Mrs Third and their three little pigs. ‘Which one’s the third third?’ He could hear them say. Or, ‘What’s it like being a third of a third?’ Samuel Peeps imagined a lot.

  Out in his back yard he would rake up the leaves and twigs, placing them in piles around the lawn. He would sit on the grass and sort through these mounds and count out the twigs, then break the twigs into pieces and count them again. For no reason. ‘My mind’s a disease,’ he would say to himself. He counted he said this 918 times.

  Samuel Peeps got to be 97 before he died. Most of his life he counted things. The day before he passed away, he lay on his bed and summed up the loss, but then he remembered what Einstein said: ‘You can’t create matter from nothing.’

  Saturday 19 January 2013

  Tribute To Decazeville

  Garry McDougall

  Balmain, NSW

  Please note that several words are deliberately misspelt, for example, Goggle instead of Google, churn instead of turn. Please also note that a ‘cave’ is French for a retail liquor outlet.

  I don’t know you Decazeville, though you were born ‘La Salle’, your name changed by Napolean III, yo
ur nation shamed when King Louis gave you away to his mistress, enriched through fornication, embarrassments by-passed by adopting nom de Monsieur Decaze, mine and foundry owner, keeper of the open pit, going deeper, underground and out of view.

  From Goggle maps, from God’s sky – who can know you and your thin tangle of streets, 6000 people and sinking, an inscrutable grey coal pit to the south, to the north, Jesus found amongst the grass and weeds, worn and cast aside?

  I walked your hills in innocence, pilgrim to your curving roads, no signs for direction, lost and giddy, encroaching your valley from above, growing confident with those pleasant homes at your edge, unaware of your blasted centre, entering after a day’s determined walk from Conques, hazelnut forest and farmland nestling into memory. Didn’t I wonder that pilgrims avoided you, bypassing your plainness for prettier towns?

  From your narrow lane appeared unwelcome, trafficked street, a welcoming bar, cold drinks a treat, breathing aromas of tobacco and old France, the sign clearly saying ‘Non Fumer’, barman serene.

  You can smile Decazeville, but you still cough.

  I don’t know you D, deceived perhaps when our alberge host practised her wondrous violin, head shaking, feet aching, soaked and soothed in cold water, wrapped in dry towels, before the cat stole my pate.

  Roundabout then, we pilgrims wandered into another of France’s million Rue de Gambettas – with bars, take-aways and the mundane, late afternoon citizens deserting main-street for air-conditioned shopping centre, short of the great pit. With another cluster of people in your square, with your amusing postcards, your hand-made sausage and pate campagne, were we misled by this liveliness? Wandering down discouraged lanes, past curious monuments, unseen better days, standing with surly youth at Jean Paul Sartre Recreation Centre, thinking I might try out the weights of justice, press the barbells of freedom, the balance bar of fraternity, and spell ‘being’ and ‘nothingness’ in a friendly game of Scrabble.

  But fellow pilgrims prompted our descent into clean and pleasant pizza palace. Dinner. Diner, s’il vous plait.

  If France has too many falafel and kebab shops, Decaze villains prefer Italian pizza, pizza and more, six of them pretending choice. Does rolled bread offend you my villains? Are falafels too foreign, and salad too unmanly? Is the pizza’s flatness alluring after centuries of digging holes, only dough to be trusted? Are clear-sighted ingredients glued to your landscape meal, more agreeable and reassuring than the rapt unseen? Are creamy cheese, rich tomato paste and crispy edges the stuff of legend? Maximum illusion! All that pizza consumed will leave you hungrier. And five others are ready to serve.

  Non fumer, says this sign.

  We ordered The New York pizza, The Genoa pizza, The Roman pizza, even The South Seas pizza. Nowhere did I see ‘The Works,’ or better, ‘The Decaze Villian’. But it all tastes better with Coke.

  We left town next morning, climbing the steep north-western hill towards Livinhac-le-Haut, meeting a pale white church in broken form, doors locked. In the vacant lot opposite, we discovered the Crucified One, expelled from church, flat on his ground, barring entry to Heaven’s door. Neighbourly satyrs invited us to crush their grapes, extract the juices, taste the terrior; blending flavours, handing out favours, all for the vino tinto, all for the vin rouge. I took a churn, all laughter with our Decaze villians, youthful bluster, timely muster, the older uncle deep in his own cave, baton in hand, orange apron, master of the dark ways.

  I don’t know you D, though I sweated on the downhill in, and laughed on the uphill out, all your ingredients plain to see.

  Short note on Decazeville

  From Conques to Figaec, Camino de Santiago pilgrims have three possible routes, largely determined by the distance to their next overnight stay. Decazeville is ideally placed for most, as it is 24 km from Conques, including a sizeable morning hill climb before the afternoon descent. However, some long-distance walkers head for Livinhac-le-Haut, a 29 km walk with a steep climb in the morning. With Decazeville considered a certain disappointment after Conques’ wonders, many pilgrims push themselves (too far?) to by-pass the old mining town. For more on Decazeville in the Averyon, southern France, and its associated attractions, go to its Wikipaedia entry. There are references to further websites that will explain, and give new info on the town.

  Sunday 20 January 2013

  My Heart Has No Home

  Fayroze Lutta

  Randwick, NSW

  Mon Amour Driss,

  I feel forgotten by you, I can’t forget you. I can’t bury you in the cemetery of the past. It’s a hoax this business of forgetting. It’s high summer here in Sydney and the days are dark without you.

  I walked over the Harbour Bridge yesterday; it has a view of the Opera House. All I saw was six lanes of metal and the roar of petrol but the comforting rattle of the train that passes over the bridge. With work I feel like I pass the day in perpetual silence chained to my desk drowning in paper. My friend said, ‘It’s just a job ... change your attitude.’ I don’t know ... I’m going to continue to write to you and I will not get a reply. It will cost you 89 centimes for a stamp. It seems too much to ask ...

  I want to frame those first three months I was in Paris with you, and that month last year in Morocco. I want to hang it next to the wooden clock on the wall above my bed. Those hot nights of waiting, of talking, of making love with our words on Rue D’Aboukir. Waiting for you to return to my fourth floor apartment with ice cubes for the Martini Rossato and the loud love making that would follow next to paper thin walls where I could hear the neighbours cough. Paper thin walls never mattered in that hotel room in Morocco calling out ‘Oui’ bent over the bed and the knock of the chamber maid on the door.

  What to make of all those moments of ecstasy past? I want to unfold you again, not curl up in the misery of an unanswered phone, or worse, a woman’s voice to answer. I want to smear my lipstick all over your shirt collar with my lips. I want everyone to see you are for me, like yesterday, like before and for always. I don’t want to know another man’s touch or form. I want you to keep me to make love to me in the mornings before work. To make love so loud the neighbours blush. Oh mon objet d’amour, I will return to you to your embrace. What to make of all these frayed threads of my heart ...

  Je t’embrasse forte, (I kiss you hard)

  Ta chérie

  Fayroze 

  Monday 21 January 2013

  The Winter And The Rose

  David Newman

  Jacobs Well, QLD

  Chorus

  For all the seasons to be and gone;

  We are the Winter and the Rose;

  Someday this Winter will pass on;

  I know! Yes I know;

  But you will still always be;

  You will always be my shining star.

  The Rose can thrive with the Winter;

  The Winter is always brighter for the Rose.

  And this Rose will always be loved by the Winter;

  Until we see Heaven closed.

  At last, the coming of the Spring;

  From a childhood that was so strange.

  My heart began to sing;

  I got back all my feelings again

  But there was something missing

  Started to search, can’t just be wishing.

  In this world there just had to be

  Someone I could see, who can see me?

  I didn’t know the colour of your eyes,

  But I knew that I would recognise.

  No walls in those eyes, and an open heart

  To make you a shining star.

  I am the Winter, it’s true,

  But I’ll not be cold to you.

  I hold you in such esteem;

  To watch you reach all your dreams.

  You are my shining star.

  Chorus

  Enter in, the Summer of dreams;

  Still didn’t know my destiny,

  Nor know what my life means;

  But
I knew, someday, I would see;

  One able to understand;

  The many facets of this man.

  I’m borrowed and I’m cultivated

  I’m not my own, but I’m dedicated.

  Borrowed from those who were more temperate.

  Was not enough, still needed something more;

  To be taught, and not ignore.

  There was something still to get;

  Should be tangible, and yet!

  It seemed to be elusive;

  Left me with no way to give.

  Needed a shining star.

  Chorus

  The Autumn came to bring me hope;

  A baby girl, a special soul.

  I can give, I can cope;

  There was someone, so there was a goal.

  The years equal one dozen;

  When this Winter was never frozen.

  But then the walls were there to see;

  And they were all built up against me.

  And there was you, with a loss of your own;

  You helped me through that hopeless zone.

  Yet all I can say is, thank you Luwana.*

  Jessica, the shining star.

  And I can only repay;

  By the words that I can say;

  I will speak them for all time;

  Jessica! One of a kind!

  You are that shining star:

  Chorus

  The Winter loves the Rose;

  You!

  You are my shining star; – Yes you are.

  The Winter loves the Rose;

  You!

  My Dear Jessica, – You are the Rose;

  The Winter loves the Rose;

  You!

  You are the Rose!

  Come now, just bring the Winter on;

  I am not weak, you made me strong.

  And now there is someone;

  I know that I can help along.

  don’t you go and lose your crown;

  Your enemies can’t bring you down;

  For of them, you are well aware.

  Hurt may come from ones, for whom you care.

  Now! Don’t you listen, just pay them no mind.

  Their words of jest can be unkind.

  I want you to know that you are a star;

  don’t forget just who you are.

  I write this to remind you;

  I’m the one who can see truth.

  I can see behind those eyes;

  To the Jessica inside;

  Where lives the shining star.

  Chorus

  For when my body is decayed;

  my bones so brittle in the grave;

  I pray that I’ll be saved;

  It’s just to love you beyond all days.

  And when you rise to meet me;

  Well! Then, I swear that I will greet thee.

  Just to prove these words are all true;

  I’ll still keep on watching over you.

  When the Earth sits quiet and no longer turns;

  And when our old Sun, no longer burns;

  And the only thing left at all – are stars;

  I’ll still find just where you are.

  And when all the angels sing;

  And with all the love that brings

  I’ll still only want one Star;

  And that’s you, Dear Jessica.

  You are my Shining Star.

  The Rose can thrive with the Winter;

  The Winter is always brighter for the Rose.

  And this Rose will always be loved by the Winter;

  Until we see Heaven closed.

  The Winter loves the Rose;

  You!

  You are my shining star; Yes you are.

  The Winter loves the Rose;

  You!

  My Dear Jessica, You are the Rose;

  The Winter loves the Rose;

  You!

  You are the Rose!