narratorAUSTRALIA Volume One Page 11

  ~~~

  On a very hot morning, the young man stood. The grey path stretched to the wooden gate, and the infinite void beyond. He clutched the leash in his hand and stared at it. He felt the familiar burning, but he knew now to close his eyes and simply breathe. Fighting it only hastened the process, and he couldn't let that happen today.

  He walked toward the front gate and turned to the right, to the garbage bin. He opened the bin and clutched the leash in his hand, and stared at it. He waited a moment, and then held it over the bin and began to open his hand ... then stopped. A second thought came over him.

  He closed his hand around the leash, and closed the bin. He stepped back from the bin and stuffed the leash in his pocket. He patted it to make sure it was stuffed in securely, then started off. He opened the front gate, stepped out, and began walking down the gravel path.

  Editor’s Pick was awarded to this story for various reasons: the rhythm, the surprise, the clever handling of what could be reduced to two sentences, but which is delivered in an intriguing manner in nearly 1,000 words, without it being a waste of text. Truly creative writing.

   

  Wednesday 16 May 2012

  Tourism Australia

  Amber Johnson

  Highgate Hill, Queensland

  Two starry eyed travellers ventured ’cross the pacific tides,

  From the season’s fall in Nevada, to the blooms in Sydney-side.

  They stepped off the plane at Mascot and took a train down to the Quay;

  Their pupils dilated in wonder at the foreign sights they’d see.

   

  The ‘Land Down Under,’ they regarded as an exotic grand motif,

  With the splendours of the Daintree and the Great Barrier Reef,

  The Opera House was a substantial architectural feat.

  Mouth-watering fantasies were had of the peculiar delicacies they’d eat.

   

  A tour guide gave a smile, and handed out the maps,

  Snickered to himself, and distributed spiked metal caps.

  ‘Sir, why must we wear these?’ asked the wanderer with red hair

  ‘To protect yourself, Ma’am,’ he scoffed, ‘From those nasty drop-bears.’

   

  The tourists were confused; the guide, as serious as a heart attack,

  Said ‘The lion is the king of the jungle – the drop-bear; king of the Outback.

  Such vicious little critters that launch on unsuspecting prey,

  The only other repel known to man is to piss in ya boot, they say.’

   

  The pair were reluctant, yet convinced the guide was sincere,

  And as the laughing stock of locals, strutted, caps and all, down to the pier.

  ‘Oi, you bloody touros!’ called a grinning man with a wave;

  The wife gasped at the man’s crudeness, as he called the tour guide a knave.

   

  ‘He’s pullin’ ya leg!’ he scoffed and introduced himself as Mike

  ‘C’mon, I’ll show you,’ he insisted, ‘what us tru-blu Aussies are like.’

  He took them to a pub, where everyone was loud, boisterous and rowdy.

  These were men who bought ‘shouts’ of drinks, and drove Holden utes, not Audis.

   

  The red-haired woman seemed uncomfortable at being called a ‘ranga sheila’

  When she heard them order some ‘tucker’, she feared that they might be dealers.

  The room roared with laughter at her concern, men enquired ‘fair dinkum?’

  ‘Bloody oath, they are!’ yelled Mike, ‘Crack a tinnie and let ’em sink them.’

   

  The travellers were bewildered by all these strange, foreign terms.

  A can of beer was thrust forth; the odour made stomachs churn;

  ‘Is this what you call a ‘tinnie’?’ The husband asked his Aussie peers.

  The response received was a surge of ‘Scull it!’ shouts and cheers.

   

  ‘I am afraid we must be leaving!’ the tourists said as they backed towards the door

  Fleeing in a quickstep, Audrey gasped, ‘Australian men are such boars!’

  ‘We may not be to your liking,’ they yelled at the Americans, rather loud

  ‘But we all have a fair go ’cause we’re Aussies and we’re fuckin’ proud!’

   

  Thursday 17 and Friday 18 May 2012

  Please Move Again

  Ronnie Compton

  Hobart, Tasmania

  Ally was a psychotic lesbian, fresh from having her second cardiac arrest in the space of four years and was high on the list for a transplant. She smoked butts that scattered Camden High Street and at the age of 43 she lost the love of her life in a tragic turn of events involving a Welsh woman who stole her wife of 20 years with vicious lesbian claws, brought up in a cloud of trepidation and speed ball psychosis, thus the reason for Ally living on the street, while the other two lived blissfully in Ally’s old town house somewhere north of London. Ally hid her alcoholism with horrid vicariousness, tainting her sister's name by giving her obscure addictions remorselessly. Oh sweet Ally, I saw right through you, but I'll never admit it, not to your person, not with the searing animosity in your liquid expressions (much like putting an abundance of rainbow in a glass of milk and watching it swirl and never stay in the one place so long as the bastardly glass stays in motion … green tainting blue, blue turning to purple after a liaison with cynical red …) grabbing at my conscience.

  I sat on a wooden bench facing a brick wall which made up the side of a hostel on a small street that jutted off the main road of Camden. I stared in SGI induced insomnia and a blurred astuteness uncommon for the intoxicated and with unfriendly movements it bared teeth at sense and perception via my eyes causing internal anxiety and an aura of strangeness. This headspace was vital in playing the role of Duke for the night and morning to come. Duke was a liar, not me. He is no enigma and fears HIV. He is an alter ego of London streets, with a story to go with it. But Ally could never find out. Ally and Duke connected instantly and I looked on in amazement as their stories protruded to a similar climax. This circumstance was beyond me, all I could do was wait until it was a safe distance away before I could rear my head and take a deep breath after holding it in fearful silence. I was a spectator of the night now.

  ‘Why do you have nowhere to go? How old are you anyway?’ Ally spat across the empty street to Duke and his table. The words flew tremendously towards him, lit from the ill street lights around. The words hit him, nearly knocking him onto the erect syringes which sprung like toadstools down below his wooden bench. He started but did not succumb to the pavement's antics; instead he wiped Ally’s spit off his cheek and began his charade.

  ‘The hostel, out of rooms. The cleaner already caught me sleeping in the luggage room, and if he finds me there again he says he’ll be giving my naked body to the police with a broken neck full of bile and Windex,’ Duke replied with a tone lathered in Australian. ‘I tried to get in the park up the road where the bushes are thick, but the gates are locked and the walls are slippery and vertical.’ Ally approached Duke as he recited the hours before their chance rendezvous. ‘Then I walked down another small side street filled with attractive houses behind gardens of mostly common flowers, within there was no real cover for a boy to sleep in without getting a chill or caught as a vagrant from an owner coincidently looking down at their prided square of nature. Then in slapdash luck, I walked past a particularly unappealing house with a garden of which was partially covered in Crataegus, or what I thought was so, but on closer inspection found it to be another shrub of unknown name with similar characteristics. It looked perfect to sleep in and so I jumped over the small stone fence and found a place under the shrub (which I am not ashamed to say had quite the aphrodisiac approach in fondling my senses) and snuggled there, taking off my jacket and turning it into a pillow.’ Ally took a seat next to Duke, spreading a dozen or so
cigarette butts on the table as she did to find the most delectable of the lot. She flittered through her slim choices and spotted the best sort as Duke continued his anecdote. ‘As I said, the bush was delightful and I found it to be overwhelming in a sensual way, so much so that it would have been difficult to stand, if one catches my drift, as the crotch times were hard. Alas, this urge came at a morbidly ironic time, because an urban fox had now made its way into the small garden and I knew that any chance of safe sleep was over as it approached me. I stood with an unorthodox stature and attempted to manoeuvre over the fence, which turned into a painful roll onto the ground on the other side. Luckily nothing was broken and as I was away from the insidiously sexual shrub, walking became acceptable and I did so quickly because I’m not accustomed to seeing foxes. Then I came back here with no reason but to contemplate where to rest.’ Duke nodded in closure as Ally finished her butt, throwing it to the ground and letting it feed the scattered syringes like manure to tall, thriving rhubarb patches.

  ‘To hell with foxes and any fucking Crataegus,’ Ally retorted wildly with a disgusted look around at the streets Duke had previously quoted. ‘To hell with the lot! I’ll take you to a place I know around here, just on the rivulet it is.’ She made a move off the table and spoke with the confidence that comes only with successful homelessness. Duke dove over lubricated condoms saturated with week old semen and dirt and the healthy garden of syringes to follow Ally, whose invitation he had tacitly accepted with his acrobatic manoeuvre.

  They walked onto Camden High Street, Duke following of course, and it was not long before Ally asked: ‘A tea maybe, Duke? I have no 60 pence on me, no, but I can hear your pockets, and there must be pence in there.’ Duke complied, reaching into his pocket and picking out coins for the old lesbian. She heading to a small window lit on a building further up the street, where a small man sat reading a book. Ally approached him and demanded tea. ‘But not too strong you fucking Pole! Put the bag in once and take it out and throw it at your fucking Pole wife!’ The man took the money and gave to Ally a small polystyrene cup.

  ‘I’m not Polish you twit,’ the man said tiredly as she turned away without a word, leading Duke once again further up the road. Duke was not afraid to see the money go, as the small sum of 60 pence and staying in companionship with psychotic homeless dykes will always be more affordable than the common hostel, albeit an experience of switch blades and the perpetual chill …

  Ally sipped tea and led Duke further on, erring left on a low bridge they had now come on and down a staircase that descended into a black space on the underside of the bridge. Duke followed her down the isolated steps and as they furthered their descent, what seemed like sweat but was that of the odour of urine and corpses drenched their bodies and profusely liquefied in the nostrils, leaving one in the constant want for a tissue to wipe it away before it dribbled down to the mouth or other nearby orifices. Duke found the water’s eerie motion all the more rank, regards to the heavy blue neon lights situated below the water, throwing it out and onto everything around the rivulet, a bleak consolidation to those too poor and malnourished for the antics of LSD or TCI, but mixed in a cocktail of the avant-garde's poor taste. As the pair walked further away to shade themselves from the blue and to find somewhere to sit, Ally began to share anecdotes to the young boy. As she did, she scratched away at unknown skin conditions and lit newly found butts.

  ALLY: ‘Yeah, I used to work. On a cruise, I was. One interview is all it took an’ they let me have a job on there for a four month stint. “You know how to serve beer, skank?” was what Temple, the manager, asked me. “Yeah,” I says, “I been working in bars since I can remember.” My mum, she owned a bar you see? “Do ya like pussy? Can ya take an armada of ghouls dressed as chav dykes armed with coke and rubber fists like proper gang bang? Can ya hold your own while they use cuffs on ya?” “Yeah,” I says, like, what, he thinks I’m sixteen again or something? Stupid cunt. “Well you’re hired then,” Temple said, “and welcome to the first dyke cruise of West England.” Fuckin’ Ace! No better person for the job than I. Last job I ever had. I’d serve drinks in the afternoon then take four sluts a night. I swallowed them up one by one, two by two, whatever number they came in. They’d thrash and scream, usually getting a hit in before they turned to yellow substance. This goo would fill my room and most nights before the girls came in I’d have to throw it out the window with a small bucket into the ocean. Anyway, life was going spectacularly, up until my third month on the boat, when we’d stopped on a town north of Exmouth, and I get a call from my mother saying she wants to come aboard and see how her girl was going. I told her to come aboard, that's all well and good, but I let her have a hint or two that she mightn’t like what’s going on up on deck, but she came anyway. Well the day rolls up when she’s coming aboard and fuck me sideways if she didn’t even recognise me! She screamed and hollered; “You’re broken, you’re a bruise, I can see your inner labia from here! Dear god, my own daughter …” Well fuck, thought I: here I am, working as tough as them boys fighting the Poles, an’ I get nothing but disrespect and denounced from the family! So I kicked the ol’ badger off the boat quick smart I did, and never seen her since ey.’ She laughed with malice in her eyes and threw her head back violently, so much so that as she did bloody gunk jettisoned out from her mouth and onto the concrete beside Duke’s foot; the picture of a deranged and ill foetus clawing at some compromise at pre-life.

  Duke kicked it away closer to the water so as to not be disturbed by its bile-esque smell or shrill cries, and it was not long after the mess had landed that a small canine ran from darkness and gobbled it up in selfish wolfing. A yelp closely followed the eating, though of human character, and as the dog had finished the food completely a tall man came from a similar darkness from which the dog had come from wearing a witty frown.

  ‘Champagne, save some for the rest of us! Oh cuntnix, you little brat, all eaten I see, eh? Tasty treat, eh? You little donut, Champagne, we could have cooked that up with paprika and salt.’ The dog sat content with its full stomach but was visibly embarrassed with its conceited eating charade, melting butter in its black and white self loathing while he who one would assume was the owner of the dog approached the position where it sat under blue lights near the water's edge, patting it lovingly in a sign of instant forgiveness.

  He was a tall man with over twelve shirts and overcoats hanging off him like a mosaic in the paradox of manikins foreshadowing totalitarian control, yet less colourful albeit just as depressing. As he continued to wipe his hands over the precious pet, two other characters glided over from where both the man and the dog had come from. One was a dark skinned man with darting eyes and a mouth too big for its face, wrapping around the cheeks nearly from ear to ear. The other character was a woman who kept a hood over her head and allowed matted chestnut hair to fall down over her face and to sink below her knees like a curtain of dirt and dust. One could depict her feminism from curvaceous behinds and the constant lavishing she gave to menstruation. All three were high.

  The tall gentleman was the first to converse with Duke and Ally:

  ‘What’s this then?’ he looked down at the pair with instant fondness. ‘Not safe down here, not by the blue water, not by any water, and the cold! Pair of donuts, how sick you’ll find yourselves tomorrow. Don’t fret now though, safety in numbers. Numbers can keep knives, foxes and chavs at bay, but BAH! The cold will have your children like bipolar midgets dancing in the woods. Come now, you’re homeless too, I can pick ’em a mile off, we’re all wearing the same face, eh? Nothing to hide from, eh? Can’t do it! Come now, heh heh. My name is Dean. This is Champagne, the little donut she is. Not a cuter dog than Champagne, there isn’t. That beautiful woman there is Cat, my lover … God love her, she can barely walk. Gav, give her a beer. The chap with the smile is Gavin, and though he’s from Wales, the cunt is wonderful. A character to keep around, eh?’ Duke and Ally both stood and gave their introductions respectively to t
he troupe. They sat in the blue for minutes, exchanging stories of frost-bitten evenings and fox cook mornings. ‘And how the cunts give me a stomach like a nuclear testing ground!’ Gavin yelled out excitedly to the group, causing a moment of silence and his demeanour returned to a recluse’s repartee. Their witty banter simmering down to nothing, Dean took the opportunity to instigate the closing amendment of fellowship via collective movement and with that Duke and Ally were now in a victorious group and safe at last from lurking horrors.

  They rose as one from the pits of the neon blue rivulet and returned to the streets above where a destination was implanted in their heads, courtesy of Dean’s leadership.

  DEAN: ‘I have hidden a sleeping bag behind a bin not too far from here,’ he explained in chilled excitement. ‘The street’s just off High Street, I forget the name but I’ll know it when I see it. I hid it behind the bin because how can one be sure that they will not be involved in a knife fight before bed? Bah! You can’t, and if one is in a knife fight one needs two hands: one for knifing and the other for company, am I right Duke?’ He elbowed Duke in the ribs and winked jovially.

  While the three men, that is Dean, Gavin and Duke, walked on in meaningful conversation of bags and knives, the two women, that is, Cat and Ally, lagged behind to divulge in folly small chat of murmured hillbilly memoirs to which took them back into suppressed nightmares that were powerful enough to bring them to tears and Platonic embrace. The connection these women who know nothing of one another can make … As this destructive banter commenced behind him, Duke did his best to tighten the group in solidarity once again, but alas, Dean’s control made it impossible.

  DEAN: ‘Let the women talk young Duke, they are bound by forces we cannot touch or go near, hitherto they invite us, at a time when the space around them is safe to enter. If we step in prematurely we will lose our skin and breathing will be nothing but movement of internal bile up and down until we sink into ourselves. I’ve seen it before ... My Cat … She’s killed many folk the same way. My Cat, what a darling, what a beauty, eh? She was never this under control, never this calm. You know, when she found me, she was indulging in 9-5 pre-occupation, eh? What a thought … She knew solace was, so she had some via me, hehe, and you know what? She never looked back. She fucks like a wild child, like a pack o’ jaguars and grandiose Camel spiders chasing you up a giant oak: fear is in the mainline but bewilderment seeps through and no matter what the outcome, no matter how bloodthirsty and messy it gets, you know in your heart it's the right thing to be a part of.’ Duke looked back at the stumbling girl full of ketamine and liquor, and through the mess of hair and dirt, he witnessed a happy child. Gavin was looking at her too, his smile a bright horizontal crevice. He knew if he looked too long then Dean would catch him and throttle him silly, and so he distracted himself with small talk once again.

  GAVIN: ‘Duke, you’re not even from this country, how is it you’ve become homeless?’ I froze, and Duke froze.

  ‘I’m not homeless,’ Duke said with a smile as his vision became poor and black spots began to appear everywhere … ‘I’m rich and thriving in life, watching you as a form of wankish retrospect to console anything depressing. It was either this or nothing.’ The two men, Dean and Gavin, stopped turning vile colours of red and mauve, producing concealed shivs and used syringes. Duke turned to run but instead fell forth into a crack in the road. He began to fall into the endless pit but just in time he grabbed the edge of the road and held on for dear life. Gav and Dean fell to their knees where Duke’s hands could be seen on the surface and in simultaneous affliction they threw down their shivs and needles in Duke’s bare fingers and knuckles. Blood and bone protruded, flying from his body to make way for dirt and HIV. Duke screamed as his hands turned into two clumps of moist flesh. They could not keep afloat as they were now more fluid than solid and Duke fell down into the pit wondering when the fucking HIV would kick in. The four at the surface rejoiced in throwing the liar to his much deserved death. Orgies commenced …

  GAVIN: ‘Duke, you’re not even from this country, how is it you’ve become homeless?’ Duke stumbled back from his internal, rambunctious hypothetical, and thought the question over.

  DUKE: ‘I moved over here, with a girl. Then she left me and I lost my job. It was at a bar called World’s End, in Camden Town. It’s owned by a Polish couple, and they left me out on the street. The cunts. They have no time for talentless youth. I’m going home soon, I may have hope yet.’ Gav nodded with fire in his eyes.

  ‘Myself and Dean, we’re both skilled men,’ he said in rehearsed form. ‘A florist I am, a fuckin’ ace florist, and Dean, he’s a talented carpenter (Dean nodded to verify). Fuck. Plenty of flowers needed, people die every day. And wooden structures are timeless. So why do we stay poor? Why are we out on the street? Why are we forced to steal Taco sauce?’

  ‘Because of the fucking Polish!’ Dean yelled and Champagne barked; a villainous duet whose rage resonated down the street they found themselves on. ‘They stole our jobs and our women and our houses.’

  ‘Exactly the fuck right,’ Gav seconded with the confidence of the ill-informed and the high. ‘Even though there’s a war going on and they’re on the side with the Japs and the Jews, they still find a way to sneak in and steal our country right under our noses. You know Poland used to be the original England? Yep! Then the cunts came from under the ground and planted their seeds everywhere, in the dirt, in the women, in the pots … Soon there was not an Englishman to be seen, they had all been pushed back into what you now see as England. And what the fuck do you know! Same thing’s happening again. They’re creeping in, in boats, in cars, on horses … Pretty soon everyone in houses will be Poles, and everyone on the streets and in the shelters will be the English. Ah it’s enough that they’re winning the war, but to do this too? And the unions can’t do a thing about it, and you want to know why?’

  DEAN: ‘Because they all speak Polish!’ They screamed and raised their fists in anger. Duke nodded, saying nothing, especially about the non-existence of a war between Poland and England. He noticed a tear running passionately down Gavin’s face, a sign of patriotism and legitimate sadness that Duke knew he would never feel. Silence fell, until the women caught up with the others.

  CAT: ‘Dean, where the fuck is the street with the bag? You’re lost, I can tell by your walk. It’s been a whole fucking hour Dean, where is it?’

  ‘No babe, I know where I am, what do you take me for, some brat donut?’ Dean shook his head and rambled affectionately that she should cool her boots and that it was merely the next street over. He put his free arm around her amongst lover’s charm. Cat groaned spasmodically in sensual delight and as her eyes closed the road beneath her legs began to erode as aroused moisture dripped down like acid, eating away for metres. How horny she was … How her slurred words coincided with his ostentatious amount of shirts and jackets, and how their matted heads of hair wrapped around one another like sewerage vines of thick brown and black ivy. It was love. Their connection was however vexed by Gavin’s perpetual lust that lingered around the couple and snaked away in dismal dejection. Tears ran down his face for a reason other than patriotism now, and they flowed in a stream parallel to his love’s love acid on the road. As always, his tears and want went unnoticed.

  Cat and Dean had moved away from each other now, and Cat stumbled to where Duke was walking.

  CAT to DUKE: ‘This chav [Dean] is the horniest man alive. How can I explain? We fit together, cause I’m always horny too. He shoots me up while I suck him off. We fuck for days. We were sleeping at my Mother’s house the other night, on the couch just outside her room. I was on my period and she was right on the other side of the door, and he didn’t give a fuck, he didn’t! He fucked me anyway, hard and fast, without a rubber, mind! Blood and gunk was everywhere, like a backyard abortion and a beautiful orgasm going all simultaneously it was. What a mess. Mum threw that couch out after that night and now she has trouble breathing, which she
can only blame herself for.’

  Duke strangled his throat as to not let any vomit protrude, but it soon escaped from many orifices and he felt lucky that he was situated at the back of the group, as Cat had walked onwards and left him to ponder. Vomit was all over him and he quickly lay on the ground as to let Champagne lick him clean.

  By the time he caught up to the posse he found Cat no longer relishing in sexism and Dean on the ground cussing profusely while the other two watched on coldly in an apathy of sorts, stirring confusion in Duke, and he quietly posed the question of the reason of the group’s sudden change of demeanour:

  DEAN: ‘The cunt of a flipping gate is closed! The gate with the bin behind it, and the bin with the bag behind it: the sleeping bag.’ He directed Duke's gaze across the road where a small and somewhat transparent gate stood erect, and the notorious bin stashed away behind it, looking invidious and motionless.

  ‘Fuck you Dean!’ Cat screamed from behind a forest of hair. ‘I told you, I told you it was a shit place to hide it! Now what are we gonna do? Freeze? You’re the fucking donut, I know that now!’ Dean stayed prone, spieling a mantra of 26 Pound down the drain, a grandiose amount for the homeless. It was a climactic scene and it looked as though they would end the night on this sour impression, but at the lowest point, Ally stood tall and sighed: ‘Oh, friends …’ as she moved eloquently over the road and to the gate. She stood in front of it for a moment, then with her left hand she eased the gate across and open. Behind her the group erupted in blissful rowdiness, running to her and covering her with licks and kisses. Dean broke off from the group, reaching under the bin, pulling out a small black bag, then throwing it up and holding it over his head like an enemies’ deceased spouse or offspring, yelling ancient Incan curses to the heavens as he did.

  ‘Saved the night you did, Ally,’ he said as happy as he had ever been, embracing her for a second and more intimate time. She smiled, knowing that she would now be loved forever, and with this epiphany she succumbed to a new Ally, an optimistic lover. In her mind sat a montage of bright colours and past, beautiful times that never had any relevance to her aside from that of retrospectively explaining to her the horridness of her descent, until now. Now, it was making love to this new experience, causing a manifestation of serotonin she never knew were allies. She cried in happiness.

  ‘Now we go to the last homeless sanctuary of Camden I know of,’ Dean said with a skip in his step as he led the now dainty crew on down to another set of stairs not unlike the set which they had ascended to get out of the blue and freezing rivulet. Ah! Behold … they were back on the very same rivulet by the waterside, with the same blue spilling over everything, but they were further north than before.

  DEAN: ‘Yeah I know donuts; we follow the stream until we get closer to the train station. That’s the only way I know to get there.’ The others hear heared and they once again sunk deeper into the snaking arctic abyss, turning a cold blue as the neon slipped down, down, down, as if for oral sex, but no, it instead sank into the skin and mingled with the insides: grand initiative.

  Silence was broken only by Gavin as he began to recite a heartless love poem with no motive but to forget the cold.

  I have no words for the night if this is my last

  I won’t console, won’t put myself in the danger of retracing steps of

  mangled cunts,

  or flower-trodden saints

  begging like sisters on the streets of Hiroshima

  for a breath from the gas mask.

  Starve me, immortality, with a tease,

  brandish milky breasts and indelible gash

  from behind red glass as a silhouette born from squalid

  rise up and dance with me,

  one last waltz to send us off

  Do you recall?

  we both left the house

  with locked keys

  at the same time

  I was at your knees

  I asked for some repetition

  I said please move again.

  Dean looked over at him between shivers; a grimace of condescension on his face.

  ‘What’s the frequency here, Gav?’ he asked jovially through the chatter of breaking teeth. His question remained unanswered and Gavin never spoke again.

  After hours of walking and being drenched in freeze, the path began to widen and the rivulet slowly thickened into a small but prominent river. Up ahead Duke could make out a collection of buildings and it dawned on him that they had reached the train station which Dean had mentioned earlier. Yes it was true: they had escaped from the blue rivulet and made it to the river side, where trees and shrubs sprouted along the winding path. It wasn’t long after that that Duke also spotted a large lump to the left up the way. It was a lump of blankets, of siblings of poverty and junk. They had found the sanctuary: a grandiose cluster of blankets and bodies all tight as to keep the cold away. There were at least fifty of them there, and the fellowship that Duke resided in made their way to the northern end of the community of unconsciousness. Dean laid the sleeping bag out, realising it would only fit three of them. Bollocks.

  ‘Don’t fret now, I have a plan,’ he said, tiredly waltzing into the garden of still bodies, seeing which were dead. One unfortunate Iraqi was unconscious but alive when Dean pulled the white quilt from under him. Shaking it as he returned, ridding it of syringes and rats, screams of Iraqi cussing followed him but he hush hushed and threw it down over the shards of glass and smelly weeds.

  ‘Duke, Ally, this is for the pair of you,’ Dean said thoughtfully to the grateful pair.

  ‘Goodnight you lot,’ Ally screamed tearfully to her new family, sitting down on the bloodstained sheet. Duke went prone next to Champagne who had ultimately joined them on the blanket. Can one be more comfortable or content than when laid out in between the terminal dyke and the sanctimonious pup called Champagne, on top of thieved fabric full of HIV? Nein. Duke slept well, the fresh air and serenity killing insomnia.

   

  Saturday 19 May 2012

  Morris Minors

  Mark O’Flynn

  Leura, NSW

  My mother has asked me on a date. I suppose you could call it a date. An outing. That’s better. It is kind of quaint, and also kind of not.

  My mother is a painter; what the cynics call a weekend painter. Little old lady paintings I call them, which is unfair, because she’s been doing it for decades and still makes a bit of money. Watery landscapes mainly; still-lifes and so on, although recently she has branched out into charcoal. The tonal realist school, if you want a label.

  Being December, today is the day her painting group are having their Christmas party and she has asked me to accompany her. Why not? It’s not normally a time of year I would be here, living interstate as I do, but tomorrow is the funeral of my aunt who has died after a long illness, and so I am here, out of my comfort zone, doing the right thing. I am surprised that in the space of a page a simple event like Christmas drinks has already become inordinately complicated. In the days leading up to the funeral, life is carrying on. There is no reason why it shouldn’t. However, life carrying on in the small town where my mother lives carries on in slow motion. It is like watching the tendril of a new leaf unfurl, or a whale playing chess.

  The aunt is not my mother’s sister. Was, sorry, was. She was my mother’s sister-in-law. They did not get on, and have managed to maintain this grudge for fifty years. I have never really understood why. My mother felt possessive about her brother Steve, who died long ago. I remember my uncle. He was the one who taught me how to play draughts and do somersaults on the lawn. There are photos of him, strong and bare-chested, with kids balancing on his shoulders. One of those kids is me. I even remember the muscles in his back.

  My mother was close to Steve, by all accounts. When the end came for him they all sat about his bedside, but he was too dosed up on morphine to know who was there. I guess it’s a common story. After a while the nurses sent everyone outside. Some messy
business to be performed. Out in the corridor my mother suddenly stopped, pretended she had left something behind, then ducked back into the room. Behind the curtain she placed her hand on Steve’s arm and his eyes opened. They looked at each other. She gave his arm a squeeze, realising she was never going to see him again.

  I must have been nearly thirty when this happened.

  Steve’s children, my cousins, I knew better when we were little. Now I only ever see them at funerals. There have been the funerals of their father, my brother, an old patriarch on someone’s side of the family. Maybe one or two others. My cousins are the sort of people I now only ever have cause to meet at funerals. In that respect, which is rather Pavlovian, I always think of them as very well-dressed people. People that I have unfortunately come to associate with death. Tomorrow it is their mother’s turn.

  In the years following my uncle’s passing, I occasionally find my mother sitting in a darkened room listening to something classical, and know she is thinking of her brother. This is a melancholy picture. I feel the torpor of a son’s responsibility. What should I do? She is starting to forget things, but so do I for that matter. Anyway, it’s only small things. Alternately she remembers things I would rather she didn’t. Things I said when I was little; things that happened when she was young. The Miss Elcinous drawer, for instance, is a long standing joke. It took me a long time to work out that she was referring to a drawer full of miscellaneous odds and ends. I always understood, and this is the joke, that the drawer belonged to a person called Miss Elcinous. What she forgets is that she has told me this story, and others like it, over and over again and I have to pretend that I am hearing it for the first time.

  A whale playing chess.

  I have no strong feelings about my aunt. I remember her laughing at something I had done once that I did not think was funny. I guess I have to side with my mother in this rivalry. We are born bearing grudges, and my mother has now lost hers.

  So I drive her to Christmas drinks, with all the painting ladies. Life carrying on. A leaf unfurling. There are eighteen of them. They all cluck over me as I am introduced. One of them even films me saying ‘hello’ with her mobile phone. Over the course of lunch several of them reveal that they know more about me than I know about them. I know nothing about them. My mother has obviously been talking. I am polite. I eat what they offer. It is nice to see that she has friends. I am surprised to see she is so popular.

  ‘Have you tried the blue jelly?’

  I eat some blue jelly. There is also mushroom quiche and asparagus fingers and toasty things and cake. I make the right noises.

  ‘Have you seen the cars? You must get Ern to show you the cars.’

  Ern, the husband of Joan, who is hosting Christmas drinks, collects Morris Minors. Being the only two males amongst the eighteen painting ladies it seems entirely proper that I ask about the cars and that Ern show them to me. It also seems proper that the women should shoo us off to do this. Ern jumps up. The painting ladies are starting to get the giggles. The corks are popping. It’s looking to be a long lunch. We’d best scamper. Outside I note there are goldfish in the pond by the door. That’s interesting.

  Ern leads me down the yard to his shed. It is a custom-built edifice made from second-hand materials, designed to make it look older than it actually is. There is an antique petrol bowser out the front to lend an air of verisimilitude. I have never seen such a neat looking shed. Inside, after he turns on the lights, I count eighteen cars shrouded under white, canvas covers. I ponder the coincidence of there being eighteen painting ladies inside as well as eighteen shrouded Morris Minors out here. At least I presume they are Morris Minors. Ern unhooks the cover of one and flicks it back with a practiced hand. Under it is a Morris Minor.

  ‘This was my first car. 1953,’ he says proudly.

  It is shiny and blue. Immaculate – that is the word they use about cars. Immaculate condition. As new. Shiny as the duco on a coffin.

  ‘I sold it when our third child came along, then when my son turned eighteen he reminded me that I’d promised this car to him, so we tracked down the lady I sold it to, living up in the Mallee she was, and bought it back at a slight mark-up but not too terrible.’

  I understand that Ern really likes his Morris Minors, although I don’t know why he thinks it is important for me to know this story.

  He unwraps another. And another. One is lavender. One has smooth wooden panels. One is an actual Morris Minor police car imported from England, circa 1971, with POLICE stencilled along the sides and a siren that, after hooking it up to a battery with silver terminals, blares out loudly. There is even a bobby’s helmet and truncheon sitting on the front seat. Ern is in his element. I ask him a number of car-related questions. How long has he been collecting them? Which is his favourite? How much are they worth? Strangely, I can’t recall the answers to these questions. I am the sort of person who regards a car to be an inanimate machine intended to transport me from point A to point B. It should not have a personality. I do not care that they are shiny, or lavender. However, I much prefer this conversation to what I might expect inside with the painting ladies where they would probably ask me about myself.

  I probe Ern with a few more mechanical questions and he starts to fly, describing the history of the Morris Minor, its place in cultural consciousness. He also likes Chevrolets, but it is the Morris Minor that is his passion. His talk falters. Suddenly it becomes clear that Ern doesn’t want to tell me any more about his collection. Perhaps he has given too much away. I suppose he presents this talk to more important people than me. I suppose he might even charge money for it. He wants to wrap them all up again and lock the door. I help him do this. He waddles back up towards the house.

  Outside, under a tree, I note five more Morris Minors, all rusty old bombs covered in lichen. Future projects, I am guessing, or else cadavers farmed for spare parts. I take a look around the garden. Also immaculate – there, I see I am wrong about that word. Nevertheless it is still an awful word.

  I stop and study the goldfish. A cigarette butt floats among the lilies. I wipe my feet. I go inside to all the laughter.

  ‘Have some blue jelly. There’s plenty of blue jelly.’

  I have some blue jelly, even though I don’t like it. I begin to see that my mother has a life beyond any that I suspected her of having. I find this a profound relief. It suddenly feels like something I am not expected to provide.

  After a while we say our goodbyes. Ern has disappeared. No solidarity there. My mother rinses her empty plate. I put her in the car and chauffer her home, careful not to drive too fast. Chopin is playing on the radio and she tells me again how her own mother used to love playing Chopin; she was a fine concert pianist. Another story I have heard before. It may well be true.

  She remembers we have a funeral to go to tomorrow. Her sister-in-law; with whom she never really got on. She thinks about what to wear. I will no doubt see my cousins again. I realise, with a jolt of shock, that if my cousins have come to represent death for me, strange collocation, then I probably foreshadow the same for them. I am the portent of grief and sorrow. We are reciprocal omens. Gee. Here I am trying to do the right thing when all along I have been the harbinger of death. When they see me the scythe shall be unsheathed and the harvest struck down. Death will walk the land in my shadow.

  Perhaps I am being melodramatic. There is no way to clear up this misperception without actually talking to my cousins about it. They’ll be upset. There’ll be tears. I don’t know if I am up to it, nor if the actual funeral is the right time and place.

  Afterwards I will go home. But all that is tomorrow. There is a whole evening to get through yet. On the drive back to the town where my mother lives, I note how full the dams are, how green the paddocks, the moon in the sky white as a tooth.

  ‘I hope you weren’t too bored,’ she says, nursing her handbag.

  ‘It was fine. Those cars were interesting.’

  On the radio Chopin does
his business.

  Then she says: ‘Did you ever meet my brother?’

  I do a double-take, hands on the wheel.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My brother, Steve. He died years ago. Did you ever meet him?’

  The fence posts flash by. I don’t really know how to respond to this question, so I close my mouth and just focus on the road.

   

  Sunday 20 May 2012

  Between

  Cathie Tanaka

  Blackheath, NSW

  Let me be alive

  In well-loved empty places

  Like the instant between the stars

  Or the now in my respiration

  Still, like a notion of trees

  Green, between a mountain’s knees

  Way below sun-dappled breezes

  Where pause is hallowed and meaning ceases

  Written 24 November, 2011 – Otoosan’s 80th birthday, if he’d lived.

   

  Monday 21 May 2012

  The Legless Frog

  Alan Lucas

  Katoomba, NSW

  I like to think she’s hiding

  her wedding ring

  when she folds her arms,

  but I know it’s just because she’s cold.

  ‘This is a cold house she tells me,

  built for hot summers,

  all trees and shade.’

  We’re getting on fine,

  joking and talking,

  sharing anecdotes as I peruse

  her French style shop,

  and her.

  She’s a very attractive lady,

  mid or late forties,

  she asks me where I live

  (now that’s a good sign is it not?)

  we speak of escargot and frogs’ legs.

  She tells me frogs’ legs taste just like chicken,

  and I tell her of a cartoon

  I’ve seen, of a little frog in a wheel chair

  with no legs and a perplexed look

  on his face, wheeling himself

  from the exit of a French restaurant.

  We laugh (is that a good sign?).

  As I leave, she remarks that it was nice

  chatting to me, (another sign?).

  I muse that

  either women are becoming more subtle

  as I grow older,

  or I am unable to read the signals

  the way I used to.

  I suspect

  it’s a bit of both.

   

  Tuesday 22 May 2012

  The House

  Alannah

  Christies Beach, SA

  I often wondered if he lived there

  His open mind seemed to suggest

  Excitement and droll luxury combined

  Like a trend refined

   

  There was something wrong with this place

  Solid and imposing in the softest sand

  It seemed ambitious and cruel

  Absorbing the land

   

  I wanted to say hello but

  The house projected an imaginary fence

  That precluded the waves

  As a form of defence

   

  I thought of picking a flower

  Running to the entrance and placing it quickly

  Ringing the bell and hiding

  Despite who may be residing

   

  I never did it, though

  There was enhanced vision from the second floor

  Security was immaculate

  Especially at the door

   

  Quiet though I became

  In my anticipation of what seemed hard

  I wondered if he lived

  On the lonely esplanade

   

  His telescope stood solitary

  Pointing at the moon so sad

  I wondered if he had this house

  My poor, rich Dad

   

  Wednesday 23 May 2012

  A Banquet In Venice

  James Craib

  Wentworth Falls, NSW

  The Doge’s masked ball and banquet was in the palace at St. Mark’s Square.

  All the titled lords and ladies of the nobility were there.

  Plus the corpulent Baron Banquo and his young bride – Babette,

  Who had arrived by gondola; left their babe in bassinette.

  They hovered over hors d’oeuvres whilst troubadours strummed lutes,

  And pecked away at peacock wings, lark’s tongues and exotic fruits.

  Then feasted they on Pommes Noisettes and pheasant under glass,

  With fresh baguettes and Crepes Suzette and Pâté de foie gras.

  Long loud cheers brought antelope ears, on beds of pasta flour,

  Swordfish laced with aniseed, abalone and lobster chowder.

   

  There were fruit bouquets and crème brûlées, granita e sorbetto,

  Champagne floats, strange artichokes at il stravagante banchetto.

  Whilst ladies in their stunning gowns of velvet, lace and satins; sighing

  Went gliding by, with oblique masked eyes and décolletage inviting;

  Gallant Grenadiers, with swords and spears, kept an envious watch,

  As foppish courtiers seduced wives, daughters and serving maids hotchpotch!

  Shimmering candelabra, cast an aura of glamour, over sumptuous tables spread

  With dazzling brocades that were gold inlaid and large vases with roses red.

   

  They danced all night by candlelight at the Carnevale di Venezia,

  Babette thought gaily of her bambino left with maid Lucretia.

  And plump Banquo drank much vino laced with maraschino cherries,

  Little did he know that they were tainted so with wild Dalmatian berries.

  ‘Come’, said the tipsy baronet, ‘We’ll walk to the appartamento.’

  But Babette demurred and implored, ‘My Lord I’m so impaurito!’

  ‘Have no regret my sweet Babette, I’ll keep thee safe from harm.’

  So off they staggered, somewhat haggard, beside the Canale Grande.

   

  The light from torches many played, ballet on waters calm, serene.

  Whilst overhead, the fireworks spread and invoked a mystic sheen.

  The young bride stood entranced as colours danced across the skies.

  And Banquo, with his blood afire, confirmed his desire in lust-filled eyes.

  ‘Forsake your ardour’, pleaded Babette, ‘until we reach our billet safe!’

  And with the banquet long forgotten, the couple hastened to their fate.

  Not far behind in shadows lined with debris from il carnevale,

  A figure in dark cloak and masque stealthily followed; a ghastly finale ...

   

  Was about to fall, inexorable, upon the Baron and his bride

  A figure pulled Babette away, held a stiletto to her throat and decried,

  ‘Be still my Lord or with this sword I’ll spill this wench’s blood!’

  It was the maid and she said, ‘Keys, to strongbox please; avoid a crimson flood’.

  Banquo with his senses dulled, unfurled his sword and lunged with pride,

  From the shadows flew another silhouette, plunged a blade in Banquo’s side.

  Bassanio, with his eyes aglow, the accomplice now took his rest.

  ‘Well done my love, now take his keys, avanti ... empty out the chest’.

   

  ‘Now we must deal with you it seems ... bravo my lady Lucretia.’

  ‘Our elaborate plan, played with much élan, has freed us both.’ Indeed a ...

  Year before they hatched their plot when Babette was betrothed by her father,

  To marry the Baron: Lord Banquo, who was barren, in other ways we gather.

  The servant – Bassanio fathered the child, although, the Baron already suspected.

  But to suffer anguish, in t
he heart of Venice, was a fate that was quite unexpected.

  Babette took the dagger and with a swagger turned to her odious spouse:

  ‘So to you – podgy Baron stew – take this!’ She pierced his eyes and blouse.

   

  She passed some gold ducats to her maid, ‘Leave quickly Lucy, but be wary!’

  ‘Keep to the shadows ‘til well clear of Venice, be mindful of the carabinieri.’

  Then Babette and Bassanio took flight with their bambino across the laguna.

  They took refuge on Burano and in due course Bassanio took Babette; il fortuna.

  The Doge was rather blasé, a propos death and robbery of Baron Banquo,

  Who perished by the Grande Canale, in a dark alley, unloved and incognito.

  The banquet carried on for days – no one ever seemed to mind,

  The evil that was done to Banquo, legend says: made a Venetian blind!

   

  Thursday 24 May 2012