~~~
Front liner
Dedicated to the year of 2006
Cynthia’s flesh was sticky with hot perspiration. Hector peeled himself away. Crumpled, twisted sheets lay on the floor. He rearranged them over her. The room was cold. It didn’t have a heater. The grey winter sky peeked through twisted cracks in the venetian blinds, dull illumination.
Neil Young played, faint background lyrics rolling by in the jaded passion of the room. He sat on the edge of the bed, feeling suddenly self-conscious in his nakedness. Clothes lay about his room like flowers of the recent past, her bra, his sock. Dressing was too much to think on.
She lay looking at him, obviously wondering what was wrong. He forced manners, lay down by her, draping an arm over the round curves beneath the sheet. She smiled and rolled her way beneath his arms to fall asleep, selfishly exhausted. He was not tired, but waited patiently while she bathed in the pleasant dreams of a future, a man who was more than just a casual relationship. He had thought of a future, once upon a time, too. Now, he knew he’d done it for the ideal, but lust had got the better of him again. Or something like that, he wasn’t sure.
He thought about her lying next to him and how he should love her and how she deserved to be loved. He knew he wasn’t a bad man. He was a respected man of vision, passion, creativity and intelligence. He was strong and handsome, and she made art and was beautiful, funny and an all round cutie. They deserved each other’s love, for she would scratch his back and he’d wrap his coat around her when she was cold. They’d never argued and she swore sex couldn’t be better. She even made him laugh. He should have felt proud to hold her hand in public.
But he felt passionless with her, even when he whisked her off for a quick kiss in the company of disapproving friends. He felt sad and thought his head was too full of uncertainties. But he was bored of having women who said they loved him, come around to finally hate him. He had no wish to hurt her. But he realised he’d have to.
“I don’t love you, Cynthia.” He was quickly left alone in his room.
Hector woke to a vaguely lit window of morning, overcast sky powdering his room. He rolled back the heavy blankets and stepped onto the cold wooden floor, crossed from his room to the bathroom, had a momentarily hot shower and growled as he dried himself with a cold, damp towel.
He completed forty push ups, sprayed on a layer of deodorant and trudged down the narrow stairs of his house.
Naked, he retrieved his clothes from the washing line. The pants were still slightly wet at the ankles but he didn’t care. He covered his naked body outside, careless of the icy winter wind that stung his damp hair dry.
Back inside he went about turning the gas heaters on. He waited over the ticking switch as the flame worked to ignite the gas soaked mesh. He trudged back upstairs, where his house-mate had taken over the shower, singing some shitty pop song.
The kitchen was a pigsty, but he found his way to the eggs, some crusts of bread, and scraped something burnt off the pan. He left the washing-up to his house-mate, whose turn it was to clean the kitchen on the house roster.
Hector made his way with his breakfast to the lounge-room, stepping over the sleeping body of one of his regularly visiting friends. The room was filled with empty beer bottles. Half a slab still sat in an Esky by the door. Hector pulled a beer, scooped away a place to sit down and had his breakfast.
Another house-mate, Sarah, could be heard waking up downstairs. She thumped around downstairs, then thumped her way upstairs, opened the door, took a disgusted, groggy glance about the room and sat by Hector, looking into the kitchen. Blond, unwashed hair fell over a usually pretty face, now crumpled and smelling like morning. She wore her nighty, covered with angry teddy-bears on a field of Barbie pink. Hector passed her one of his eggs.
“Fuck, the kitchen’s a mess.” She said, in true awe.
“I know.” Hector chuckled, remembering the long night he’d drunk away, not so many hours ago. “I’m getting pissed, then going to work. With a bit of luck Tommy’ll have it done by the time I’m home.”
Almost by magic, Tommy appeared at his name. Fresh and athletic, with a permanent stupid grin on his face. He laughed at the zombie-like appearances of his house-mates. “Morning house-mates, how we feeling?”
“Excellent, Einstein, how do you think I’d feel.” Hector grumbled. He liked Tommy, but hated everyone in the morning.
“Can you do the dishes today, Tom boy?” Sarah asked. She didn’t like to show her feelings to anyone very much. She was by far the boss of the house, the one who sort of kept things organised. In truth, Hector didn’t believe she liked Tommy much. He was exactly what she wasn’t, he was chaos while she was order. They put up with each other.
Tommy grabbed a beer and sat down. “Later. No worries.”
Sarah got up and headed to the shower, secretly furious at Tommy’s casualness.
“Bitch.” Tommy said, under his breath.
Hector chuckled. “Go turn the hot water on in the kitchen. Wake her up a bit.”
Tommy tried sculling his bottle and ended up spluttering frothy beer all down his woolly jumper. He stood up to go turn Sarah’s shower into a cold wake-up and kicked the body on the ground as he went by.
“Wake up, Horse.”
Horse grumbled something, withdrew his arm, checked his phone for the time, then stood up, letting the sleeping-bag roll off him down to his ankles.
“Wow, I didn’t know where I was for a second.” Horse was built more like a donkey. Big-boned, fairly muscular, dopey-eyed and bad-smelling, as he never seemed to find his way home to a shower. He was a real couch-surfer.
“Isn’t that feeling weird?” Tommy called excitedly from the kitchen. Sarah squealed as Tommy took his revenge. “That feeling of thinking you’re somewhere else, like your spirit hasn’t caught up.”
“Yeah. But everything to you is weird, Tommy.” Hector called. “Fucking hippies.”
Horse exploded into laughter.
Tommy came out from the kitchen, holding something rotten. He threw it at Hector, grossness splattering over his shoulder. Horse nodded his approval.
Hector laughed. “Probably deserved that.” He admitted.
Tommy came back into the lounge with some of last night’s leftovers.
Horse moved to get a beer. “Man, I’m s’posed to see my girlfriend today. This is gonna be hell. I just wanna sleep.” Unlike the rest of the house, Horse had had a stable girlfriend for nearly two years, which did not seem to suit him. Those who knew him better, knew that he probably had more women than all the men put together, shamefully, behind his girlfriend’s back. Hector didn’t like Horse’s girlfriend. In fact, not many people did. Her name was Emily and she was a bitch who never said thank you and had never apologised for spewing on the carpet of their house. Yet, because of this, she didn’t feel comfortable coming over, so Hector rarely had to put up with her.
“Just dump the slag.” Hector never hid his feelings towards Emily, unless confronted with her.
“Fuck off man! She’s not your girlfriend. You don’t know what she’s really like.” Horse was a little touchy toward the idea of his girlfriend being a total rotting cow-corpse.
“Whatever.”
Tommy just laughed, spilling food all over the place.
Hector left the house for work. The weather had gotten worse and now it rained heavily. As usual, he’d worn as little clothing as possible. Jeans, t-shirt, jacket. He cursed not having a jumper, but, seeing his tram coming, he crossed the road and waited to jump on, instead of going home to get one.
The tram was full of people. School kids, all in shitty maroon uniforms. He got off at the next main intersection, Church and Swan. He walked down Swan St. At this hour, in this weather, the street was mostly filled with doddery old ladies wobbling by, weighed down with piles of shopping bags. Up ahead he saw some government supporter arse-holes who only just repressed their hatred for him when he declined their brochures. He cros
sed the road feeling triumphant he’d dodged them. But, to his surprise, one of the shits was waiting for him, a knowing and satisfied smile on his face. Little chihuahua.
“Don’t even ask, arse-hole.”
The face of a gold-medal winner quickly turned to shock. Hector couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m not a rebel, but I don’t have to like it, or you, so fuck off and get a job.”
Hector turned around and quickly walked away, ignoring the pathetic insults the wanker tried to intimidate him with. He raised his finger over his shoulder.
Raising the middle fingers was one of Hector’s many skills. Somehow, he managed to make it look longer, more obscene, different blood pressures between bone and skin made it patchy, white and pink. It made the recipient feel as though he’d just been turkey-slapped.
When he finally got to the train station, the downpour was impressive. He released Salam from his shift. Salam was a fatty who stole food from the store. Hector could always tell because of the crumbs about his chin.
The day went slow. Not many people were ever hungry on his shift, which in truth didn’t bother him much. He read a while, drank from a thermos flask filled with cheap wine and generally let things slide into a stupor. He ended up giving one guy three dollars more change than he was entitled, but the guy didn’t complain, so neither did Hector. The hand hit eight o’clock and Hector passed on his shift to some new guy.
Outside hadn’t stopped its downpour. Feeling vaguely richer, he paid for a ticket and waited for the tram. On the tram some arse-hole sitting across from him clipped his nails. They went everywhere.
“What are you doing, mate?”
“Cutting my nails, why?”
“Don’t, you’re getting them everywhere.”
“Sorry.”
“No worries. Just gross is all, mate. I don’t wanna sit among your filth.”
“Do I look filthy to you?”
“No, looks have nothing to do with it. Nails are full of shit, is all.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nope. True. It’s safer to kiss someone’s arse-hole than their hands and that’s a fact.”
“Well you can have the arse-holes, mate.”
Ha ha, good one, thought Hector, prickling slightly. “Speaking of arse-holes, what’s your fucking problem.” He snapped.
“Watch your mouth, kid.”
“Can’t really, I’d trip over.”
“Fucking smart-arse!”
“You wanna go, dick-head?” The guy was clearly bigger. Hector didn’t care, he was stronger than his youth suggested.
“Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not kidding you, arse-hole, you dirty piece of shit, I only asked for the right to be spared your filth on public transport.”
People had moved away in the tram, one stupid woman scaring the shit out of her weedy boyfriend tried to intervene. “Calm down, guys. What are you gonna do, fight on a public tram?”
The guy with the nails ignored her. “You’re fucked, you little shit.”
“Come on then.” Hector stood up waiting for the dirty bugger to follow suit.
“Come on guys, just calm down, its just nails.” Her boyfriend tried to pry her out of the limelight. Hector hated women like this, women who thought they could look after themselves against violent men by talking reason to them. Little did the woman know, or care, that the responsibility landed on the guy’s shoulders, when the situation turned to shit.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Hector growled, suddenly releasing some adrenaline onto her. She literally quivered in fear. It gave Hector a sense of victory. She stepped back and the boyfriend led her away further down the carriage, pulling on the stop cord as he went. When Hector turned back to the man with the nails, he found him standing. Hector had a moment of fear, as he readied himself. He felt uncertainties grip about his body. A cold rush nibbled at his scalp and numbed his mind. The guy was big. Fuck it.
He punched the arsehole with a trained fist to his fat face, flooring him in one. “DON’T CLIP YOUR NAILS ON PUBLIC FUCKING TRANSPORT!” He roared and landed a heavy boot into the man’s side.
The tram stopped and, feeling that he’d overstepped his mark, Hector jumped off the tram, walked the back streets to Church and got another tram home.
The boxing bag shook the back veranda as Hector released his pent up aggression.
“You’ve been fighting.” Sarah said from the door. She’d come out for a cigarette.
“Fuck yeah! Oh, I mean, hardly… Just one punch.”
“Did you kick his arse?” She asked lightly. She moved to a chair and sat watching the rain pour down into the courtyard.
“Yep.”
“Cynthia came round looking for you.”
The punching stopped and Hector shook his wrists out. “What did she want?”
Sarah lit up and blew a cloud of smoke into the cold, clear air. “Wanted to see you, I guess. Looked all mopey, like she needed to girly talk. I wasn’t up to it, had to go shopping. I told her she could stay, though.”
“When did she go?”
She didn’t stay.”
“I’d better give her a ring. Any other news?”
“Nope.”
Hector pulled up a seat and sat in silence, while Sarah took a few puffs. She sensed he wanted to blurt out his story, but she enjoyed tormenting him with the illusion that she didn’t give a toss.
Finally she asked, “What happened, anyway?”
Hector related his day’s achievements, under-exaggerating the intelligence of his victim’s wits and over exaggerating his brawn. The rain beat down. Or fell down in clumps.
“You be careful, Hector. One of these days someone will have to mop you up, I reckon.”
“Shut up, it’s me your talking about.”
“Exactly.”
“Tom cleaned the kitchen?”
“Nope.”
Adrenaline flared back up, like wild-fire in a summer dry forest. “Is he home?”
“Yep.”
Hector leapt from his chair. He ran into the house, sprung up the stairs. “TOM!”
He could hear Tommy behind his door. “Man, I was gonna do it. Just…”
“Just what, Tommy!” Hector said, slamming open the door.
Tommy raised his hand, two little square pieces of paper sat at the tip of his finger. Like a switch, Hector’s temper went level and a broad grin crossed his face as he reached for one Tab.
The Australian police had long been reduced to a small number who mainly circled the transport system looking for pretty girls who hadn’t validated their tickets. They’d detain them, rape them, then leave them with a fine. If they ever asked males for their tickets it was because they were bored and wanted to beat someone up. Hector always carried a ticket and a knife. People had died for not having either.
The new police, the foreign ones, circled everywhere in armed patrol cars. They all looked the same, clones, and they weren’t human. If a situation occurred they didn’t find comfortable, they’d just shoot. That’s why Hector kept the knife well hidden in the lining of his jacket.
Today, the household walked to the city. Sarah was pretty and wouldn’t go on the trains. A freedom march in the city wasn’t a big event, yet the house-mates were discontent just sitting around while their life continued to become more and more monitored, watched, compressed. In the last year, government security cameras had tripled in the city, doubled in the outer suburbs. House raids for rebel activity had become a regular occurrence. Two in their house within the last year. Their area had seen a lot of rebel activity.
On this day, the march was a reflex that had hardly been arranged, but rather, expected when the new government had announced that they’d soon be restricting items of clothing and styles considered too rebellious. Everyone was angry. Individuality was being stamped out. So everyone did what made them feel better, they marched. They marched through Melbourne for a good few hours chanting their disgruntlement. The new powers
in government allowed this, knowing full well it left people feeling falsely undefeated.
Hector was conscious of this as were many people, yet, march after march, the household would join the flock. In truth, it did make them feel better. It was like a controlled fire, the government police waited around like firemen, in case they had to put it out. Hopefully one day it would leap past its bounds and then burn over the rotten wood of the new government, to consume and start again. Never gonna happen.
Despite all this, there was a certain buzz in the air. There probably always was. Every march always rang with hope that its demonstration would be heard. Could this one prove different from the countless rest? Probably not. Yet Hector wondered whether people would stop wearing the clothes they liked. Many of the movies and books they liked no longer seemed to be on the shelves, thanks to some new law or another. People were pissed off, but not for long. Melburnians were perfect sheep, passive, obedient in all ways, yet bleeting protest just the same.
Horse was with them again, he’d stayed again the night before. He carried a flagpole over his shoulder. It simply read, ‘FUCK OFF.’ Horse didn’t even know why he was angry. Many people had given up listing the reasons why they were so angry and had instead settled for a strong discontent. In the end ‘fuck off’ was going to be overlooked, just like all the other signs, anyway. No one else in the household had brought flags. Everyone, without question, had likely brought a weapon though. The house individually, and secretly, all fantasised over a riot; and no one wanted to be caught unawares.
The walk wasn’t long, yet long enough for Horse to start complaining. “Why couldn’t we have caught a fucking train?”
No one answered. Horse was being stupid. Not a soul walked by without noticing Sarah’s pretty face, and cops would be around every station.
“The march is long started, now!” He complained.
“So? I don’t wanna be out all day.” Tommy said, unpatriotically.
They were approaching the rear of the protest. People lingered on behind, foreign police behind them, mechanically waiting for something to happen that never would.
Hector looked upon one of the foreigners. He was mostly human in appearance, except that he had such pale skin. Over him, he wore a bulky mechanical armour, coloured yellow. His head was hairless, a ridge in his skull ran down the middle, the only real difference from humans. That, and the fact that he was identical to the rest of his fellow cops.
“Oi copper!” Horse called out to the closest. “Get off our turf!”
“Do you make threat?” The cop said in a high pitched mechanical voice. Simultaneously, three other cops out of hearing range, spun to train rifles on Horse. Hector still hadn’t figured out how they communicated with each other. They never talked, unless to humans.
“No threat mate, just testing your reflexes.” Hector frowned his disapproval at Horse. Horse was like him in his daring. Only, Hector never risked his friends for his own entertainment. Tommy looked about to shit his pants.
The copper nodded his head. “Very well.”
“Bizarre!” Horse thought aloud.
“Dickhead!” Sarah settled everyone’s fear with a thump on Horse’s cheek that nearly toppled him.
The friends moved on, coming up with the dregs. Horse waved his rude flag.
The mass of protesters ahead of them blurted out rubbish rhymes, anti-government chants and a fuzz of abuse. Intelligence was missing from these marches, Hector thought. In the end they really did mean nothing and he suddenly wanted to go home.
But the march continued through the endlessly tall walled streets. It wound on and on and Hector felt his feet beginning to ache.
Tommy had met some other protester from the crowd, a short bloke with wild eyes and unkempt hair. He was talking about life beyond the wall. A subject that gripped everyone’s fascination. Freedom beyond the wall! In a place called the countryside, only read in books. There were stories that people lived there still and that the Huon Ra didn’t control them, but let them be. Hector had never seen sky that wasn’t green or pink or, at least, grey because of the smog. He’d once read a line from a children’s book: “The sky was a deep blue, like only the sky could be.”
But Hector had given up dreaming earlier than his friends. ‘Fuck the outside!’ He’d say. ‘We’ll all die here dreaming!’
The small guy was going on and on. He’d just started getting into the rebels, the resistance, the saviours! “The wankers!” Hector spat. His friends rolled their eyes and the bright little guy turned in a mixture of confusion and shock.
“What do you mean, wankers?” He spluttered. “They’re the only ones who’ll save us!”
“Are they? They haven’t done anything yet. Those wankers are why there’s over 500 cameras up this street. Its because of those arseholes that we get raids in our household. We’ve had our door knocked off its hinges twice!”
“Yeah, but one day they’ll save us!”
“How? Don’t dare say ‘hope’!”
“Well why not ‘hope’?”
“Gee, good point. Go fuck yourself. If you can’t be bothered doing anything about our lives other than sit around and hope, then you’re not worth saving in the first place!”
The guy sensed the violence in Hector, noticed the scowling lines of his face. He faded away into the crowd, giving up what he might have said to someone else.
His friends said nothing. Tommy expelled some air, he hated the situations he got into with Hector and Horse around.
The march lingered on. Horse was convinced he got a glimpse of someone who might still have Asian blood in him. The only possibility of there being any other races in Australia, save for Aboriginals and white man, was next to none. They’d been taken away and terminated a long time ago. It was rumoured that Melbourne was once a place of strong multiculturalism. Not any more. Asians and anyone not caucasian were things talked about in stories. As a child, Hector saw them as something mystical. He’d make up stories about how he’d seen Asians in inconspicuous places. This childish imagination still hadn’t left Horse, who to this day didn’t trust he could sleep safely without checking beneath his bed for monsters or a Chinese man! Hector supposed that’s why he slept away from home so often.
Why only white men and Aboriginals survived, was a mystery. There were far too many unexplained aspects surrounding the Huon Ra society. They were aliens, after all.
The protest wound through the towering streetscape, like a dribble of life through city grey pulp. A white noise; thousands of voices singing freedom through megaphones, a crackling rumble.
Flags waving, feet stamping, guards on a sharp edge, splitting equally between two decisions: to kill or let live. Threats were read in the mass crowd. Secrets could be concealed!
Hector knew he had been handed something in the crowd soon after the short man had gone away. Paper. He was interested to see, but if it was drugs he’d be executed if discovered with it. He’d slipped it into his pocket. It was impossible to find out who it was, the crowd drifted about, inconstant like a sea. Now, he really wanted to go home.
“Prison? We’re better off dead!” A man yelled over a megaphone. Hector could just see him ahead sitting on someone else’s shoulders. Weird thing to say, Hector had time to think, before all thought was vanquished. The man literally exploded.
The sight was momentary. A loud flash, bright as the sun, landed everyone on their backs in tangles of limbs. Hector knew that the guy laying on top of him was dead, limp. People screamed. A layer of white smoke fogged the air, eyes stung. So many cries of agony. Shots rang out. Government guns hissed streams of something invisible and quick into the crowds. People were cut cleanly in half. Hisses darted around the air like a cruel wind. The government police didn’t think twice about a massacre, when they were worried about rebellious activity.
People had started running in all directions, fear like a slap on their faces. Most were cut down. Other people still lay or half sat, staring numbl
y at the crater where the bomb had gone off. There, burning people struggled against their ruined limbs to get away from their pain. Hector scrambled away from the dead weight, pushing people away who clawed at him for his aid.
Sarah! Tommy! Horse!
He stepped on someone’s leg, slid off and collapsed onto Tommy, who looked like a stunned fish.
“UP!” Hector hauled his friend to his feet, from beneath layers of bodies. “RUN!”
Sarah dottered around silently, trying to pull bits of gore out of her hair. She was in shock. So was Hector. He dived at her, speared her to the ground. The air sighed with searing violence from the guns above.
It wasn’t her gore, she was ok. “YOU’RE OK! SOMEBODY ELSE’S!”
Tommy was beside them, feebly, weakly trying to pull them up. Suddenly Horse was in the scene. He pushed a stunned Tom away to pull up his friends.
Hiss. Horse’s throat exploded blood and he was down. His eyes locked with Hector’s a brief moment as if to say, “Oh shit they got me! I’m dead!”
“COME ON!” Hector pushed his friends off the main road.
The train station was filled with people. Australian cops in riot gear waited at the entrances, guns drawn and trained at frightened people who came near. A scatter of bodies lay dead in front of them. People cried, not daring to come closer to their fallen loved ones, without their tickets.
The house-mates all held their tickets high and walked slowly forward. Hector knew they had to get out and now. Walking home would be far more perilous.
“Go through, if you’ve got tickets!”
The house-mates passed through. Sarah didn’t look so pretty, covered with blood.
The train took off. The ancient carriage stunk of piss. The seats were ripped and stained. Smart people stood.
A policeman walked down the aisle, pushing through the crowd. Another copper came a moment later. They stopped, looked at Sarah.
“Ah, there we go.” First one.
Then the other. “You need a clean woman.”
“We can sort that out at the station.” They laughed.
Hector said nothing, but watched to see if some twist in fate would have them move on.
“Ticket, Love.”
Hector held out his and hers.
“Now, now, don’t need two.” The first one took a ticket and placed it in his pocket.
“That’s her ticket.” Hector growled. The other one rammed a fist into his stomach and Hector crumpled to his knees.
“Come on, Girl.”
“No!” Sarah snapped.
The other one took her by the hair and dragged her close. The train slowed. Something muffled over the speaker indicated they were approaching the next station.
The first one kicked Hector in the face and dragged Sarah to the door. She screamed and hit at the copper. The other one punched her square in the face and she shut up.
Hector crawled to his feet. His jaw hurt hugely and blood poured from his mouth, where a tooth hung only by a shred. Tommy leant over him and tried to pull him up. Lights through the windows. They were five seconds or so to stopping. That’s where the cops’d get off too.
His legs sprang and one of the coppers spun to meet him, drawing a pistol from his side. “Little shit!”
Hectors blade, held through the lining of his jacket, pierced material and came as a surprise up into the chest of the bastard. It wasn’t enough. The second jab landed the guy in between the ribs. He huffed in pain. The gun went off, someone screamed behind. He stabbed again, dropped his weapon for the pistol and shot past one dying cop to claim another.
The doors were closing. Hector forced them back open. Tommy tried to help up a slowly recovering Sarah. Hector pulled her out onto the platform by her foot. The door closed. Tom was still aboard.
“Fuck!” Hector hauled a crying, terrified Sarah to her feet and strung her over his shoulder. He ran.
~~~
Sollai Rhys
Sollai's first collection of writings, has come on the back of fiery youth, armed with passion, conviction and humour. His writing holds the energy of a great imagination and the inspiration from his many traveling experiences. Sollai Rhys was born in 1988 in Australia, to artist parents who moved abode regularly, and traveled constantly. A country boy, he left home when he was 17 to complete his final year of secondary school in the city, in a share house. On completing his schooling he took work in factories, in an abattoir, in telephone sales; saving to travel. While traveling, he took an online teaching course, TEFL, to enable him to teach in Thailand and Hong Kong. Now, in Italy, in the mountains of Tuscany, he lives in a small village house with his brother, finding occasional paid work as a gardner and teacher. His self-motivation and belief in himself is remarkable at such an early age. His constant companion has been his computer where a multitude of stories and insights are typed down daily. From these gleanings we have compiled ten stories, an eclectic selection, that give insight into Sollai Rhys as a writer and give the promise of the greatness to come.
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