Narrator Magazine - Best of the Best 2011

narrator MAGAZINE

Blue Moun tains/ Central Tableland s

Annual showcase of this year’s winners.

ISSN: 1838-3289

This issue featuring contributions from: Mary Krone, Robyn Nance, JE Doherty, Adrian Johnstone, and more ...

AUD $12.95

The Best of the Best 2011

This year‘s winners Spring 2010 Blue Mountains

People’s choice judging

First prize

Zoya Kraus

Bright Spark

Second prize

Robyn Nance

The Liberation of Ted Farmer

Third prize

Elizabeth Diehl Greg North

Everything Seems to be Broken Black Future

Summer 2010 Blue Mountains

Guest judge: Greg Bastian www.gregbastian.com.au

First prize

Samantha Miller

Paris Match

Second prize

Joan Vaughan-Taylor

Fly a Kite

Third prize

Linda Yates

The Loaf of Bread

Highly Commended

Sue Artup David Bowden

Daniel Opinions Vary

Autumn 2011 Blue Mountains

Guest judge: Diane O’Neill, owner Blue Dragon Books

First prize

Mary Krone

Scarred

Second prize

Aristidis Metaxas

Ticket

Third prize

Robyn Chaffey

The Wind at my Door

Highly Commended

Greg North Christina Frost-Clayton

Stick It Knock ‘n Roll

Winter 2011 Blue Mountains

Guest judge: David Berger, author, Letters from Paris

First prize

Aristidis Metaxas

Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure

Second prize

Cathy Tanaka

Spin Me Round Sky

Third prize

Michael Burge

A Quick Fix

Highly Commended

Brendan Doyle John Ross Adrian Johnstone

Ode to Tony The Stranger A Wedding

Spring 2011 Blue Mountains

Guest judge: Lis Bastian, CEO Varuna www.varuna.com.au

First prize

Linda Yates

Endings

Second prize

Alan Lucas

Faustus

Third prize

David Bowden

The Man who Talked to Animals

Highly Commended

Tony Dwyer Sam Miller

Selling Green Vide Grenier

Spring 2011 Central Tablelands

Guest judge: Jenny Barry, BooksPlus, Bathurst

First prize

Rebecca Wilson

Treasures

Second prize

JE Doherty

Always the Children

Third prize

JE Doherty

The Dancing Suit

Narrator MAGAZINE BLUE MOUNTAINS/ CENTRAL TABLELANDS Best of the Best 2011 A few words from the publisher ... writing careers going, and to present the best that we can in creative writing in It‘s with an amazing Australia. And the only way to do that is amount of pride yet to throw the doors open to a wider sadness that we bring audience. you this first As you may have realised, the original Narrator Magazine plan was to release regional issues of ‗Best of the Best‘ Narrator, but in developing the Central collection.

Tablelands issue, we were sad to learn that The journey to this this brought all sorts of administrative point has been fun, issues that we hadn‘t anticipated, so by the exciting, scary, revealing, but above all, time it was released, we had already rewarding. More importantly than that, started planning to ‗go national‘. I thank though, we hope that it‘s been rewarding all Blue Mountains and Central for you, our readers and contributors.

Tablelands contributors for their support, What started as a little seed of thought on encouragement and understanding 10 July 2010 is now being developed into regarding the changeover. an Australia-wide competition between We are very proud of the writings states, and that‘s where part of the sadness contained within this best of the best issue comes. We have grown to know and love and we hope that we will see some of our regular contributors, and never cease these authors again in the ‗2012 Best of to be amazed at the different works some the Best NSW/ACT‘! of our contributors manage to come up with.

Jenny Mosher But at the end of the day, this was never meant to be a magazine for regular contributors. It is meant to be a showcase for lots of people, to help as many people as possible get a start in getting their

December 2011 Caricature: Jenny Mosher‘s caricature (above) by local artist Todd Sharp. For more info, visit toddasharp.com.

Cover: ‗Blue Mountains Welcome‘ by Karen Maber Karen Maber is an Aboriginal artist living in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Her artwork celebrates relationships between people, place, emotion and spirituality. Her passion for art and the creative process is to encourage journeys of healing and a better understanding of our connection to each other and to our natural world through one‘s heart. ‗Blue Mountains Welcome‘ was painted to welcome the many visitors to this land. ‗Welcome‘ is much more than a word that is spoken – it is a word that is felt. Feeling welcome means we feel cared for and in return we trust that you care for this land.

For more about Karen, visit her website at: http://www.karenmaber.com.au/ All images from iStockphoto.com, except Cover—Karen Maber, Haig Pit Colliery (pg 25)— Jennifer Mosher, crashed car (pg 40)—Christina Frost Clayton

narrator

Poetry 6 Bright Spark 7 Spin Me Round Sky 8 Opinions Vary 9 Faustus 9 Ode to Tony 13 Stick It! 18 Scarred 19 Fly a Kite 25 Black Future 30 The Liberation of Ted Farmer 38 The Wind at My Door

Short Stories 2 Treasures 5 Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure 6 Vide Grenier 10 The Dancing Suit 11 The Loaf of Bread 14 A Quick Fix 17 Endings 19 Daniel 20 The Stranger 21 A Wedding 26 Selling Green 30 Paris Match 32 Everything Seems To Be Broken 35 Ticket 39 Knock ‘n Roll 43 Always The Children 45 The Man Who Talked To Animals

MAGAZINE is published by MoshPit Publishing, Shop 1, 197 Great Western Highway, Hazelbrook NSW 2779 MoshPit Publishing is an imprint of Mosher‘s Business Support Pty Ltd ABN 48 126 885 309 www.moshpitpublishing.com.au www.narratormagazine.com.au

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Treasures

First Prize, Central Tablelands Spring 2011

‗Where d'ya hide the suitcases?‘ Her back is rubbing gently on the gritty clay and bits of rock are falling with the movement. His jeans are down and her legs are wrapped around his hips. ‗I told you already,‘ he says into her neck, ‗you don't need to know.‘ A loud thud bangs the ground above their heads. Twice.

Three times. They look up to the edge of the steep creek bed, above the exposed tree roots and pieces of corrugated iron that hold the bank together. Roo. Just a roo. They pull away from each other. A large canvas bag sits at the foot of an old peach tree that has grown in the middle of the creek bed. She picks the bag up and throws it over her shoulder and it hits her side softly. ‗Did you put the key back?‘ They both scramble to the top of the bank but he moves quickly, so she can't see his face.

suddenly for the Eastern Greys that are heading to the empty grassy space that sits in the middle of the old mining town.

They pass the pub and head out on the only road that takes anyone in or out.

He thinks carefully about where he put the key. 'They won't be onto me until at least next Tuesday anyway. Tom and Gail said they were definitely outta town 'til next Tuesday. And they won't go up to the cottage for a while, not 'til the next boofhead artist comes in anyway. They will notice the missing paintings though, it's just a matter of time.'

Rebecca Wilson Hill End

the suitcases.‘ ‗No. I'm coming with you.‘ The man in the car beeps the horn. ‗Jenna, what you don't know can't hurt you. Get in his car. And don't tell him a bloody thing.‘ She walks over and thumps herself into the leather seat. They nod at each other.

Jonno drives quickly back onto the road and continues until he reaches a dirt track. He follows it until he has to stop to move the branches and rocks that he'd used to deter any visitors. He makes his He looks sideways at Jenna and continues way through the scrub, dodging trees in his Landcruiser until he reaches a small to think. 'We meet the guy, get the cleared area. Out of the car, he walks suitcases and make the deal. After that behind large rocks at the base of a hill, to we're free. We'll be outta town before an old mine shaft where he shuffles down anyone notices a thing.' He lights a the ladder. At the bottom, he uses his cigarette with one hand while the other torch to recover the stashed suitcases. He holds the vehicle to the left as the sharp ‗Did you put the bloody key back?‘ She corner swoops and a sea of yellow and pulls them up to the surface one by one, wants him to turn around and look at her. black arrows points the way around the sweating. He chucks them in the back of the vehicle, under a blanket. ‗I couldn't remember exactly where it tight bend at the top of the crest. And what about Tony? He'd better keep his was s'posed to go.‘ Jenna is leaning on the Mercedes, ‗What?‘ He stops and turns to look at her, end of the deal and keep his mouth shut. smoking a cigarette as Jonno pulls in both of them angry with each other, for ‗So, how did it go?‘ Jenna is calmer now, swiftly, streaming light across her face from the high beams. Jenna walks over to different reasons. He puts his face down but not relaxed by any means. ‗Did you him, her heart is racing. Jonno simply to hers. Her voice is quivering and her get the bloody paintings or not?‘ tells her to get into the driver's seat and face is red as she asks him slowly, ‗So, ‗Yes. They're in the suitcases.‘ keep the car running. exactly where did you put it, Jonno?‘ ‗Did anyone see you?‘ Jonno shows the man the contents of the ‗Shit! Jenna, we don't have time for this now. The job's done and we need to meet ‗Would I be here driving the friggin' car suitcases and waits for the money. The if they had? For God's sake Jenna. I got driver indicates over his shoulder, where that guy in half an hour. Where's the the key, I got the paintings, they're in the a small box sits on the back seat. ‗Put the goddamn 'cruiser? And give me the suitcases and we're nearly at Sofala, so paintings there and take the box.‘ Jonno keys.‘ grabs the lid off and counts the cash. relax.‘ She pulls the keys from the back pocket ‗You do realise what scandal will They swing to the left in a hurry and he of her jeans. Her brown crusty hands eventuate when they discover these have accelerates up the hill that looks down on slam the keys into his as she cuts him disappeared, don't you?‘ with daggers from her eyes. ‗It's up near the small village. He swerves off the road and behind the trees a red Mercedes waits ‗What are you talking about?‘ the old sale yards, like you friggin' told with a pale, thin man at the wheel. Jonno ‗These paintings are very well known, me.‘ walks over to the passenger seat and young man. They are considered national Silence. They walk separately, angrily, jumps in. They talk for a while and Jonno treasures, my friend. There will be a lot up the red road. Dust is picking up in the comes back to Jenna and whispers, of heat on this, so lay low and don't do wind at the back of his heels and it blows ‗You've gotta get in the car with him.‘ anything 'unusual', or they'll be onto you. back towards her as she storms behind I am offloading these this afternoon and ‗What?'‗ him. He starts the car. The sun's washing my hands of the whole thing, reflection off the clay is alive with pink ‗Get in the car with him, now.‘ you never saw me ... okay? Stick to the and purple that radiates indigo mist, they ‗What the hell is going on Jonno?‘ deal.‘ squint their eyes and lower their visors.

He swings the 4WD around, stopping ‗Jenna, just get in the car so I can go get Jonno tips the cash into the canvas bag

and throws it behind him. He swings the suitcases onto the seat. The driver watches Jonno in the mirror, his hands on the steering wheel, poised to exit, fast.

Jonno doesn't close the back door. The driver turns his head away from the mirror to see for himself what this man is up to. Before he can speak, silver cuffs have encircled his wrists and he is locked to the wheel. The pale man struggles and yells. ‗What the hell do you think you are doing? What's wrong with you, boy? The deal is done! You want to keep those paintings and try to sell them again to someone else? You are a fool. Someone will find me here and I will tell the police every detail I know about you, you little cretin.‘

while, I'm taking Roland to the cottage.‘ No reply.

At the cottage, Tom picks up the rock near the concrete path. Not there. ‗Strange.‘ He picks up the next rock. ‗There.‘ Relief. ‗Jenna must have moved the key.‘

she might be up there.‘ She dials and chats, hangs up. ‗No, Cara hasn't seen her since yesterday morning.‘ ‗Where the hell is she then? Try her mother's,‘ he snaps at his wife.

Again she makes a call. ‗Rosie hasn't seen her tonight. Tom, that's not good.

The men make their way to the front door That's very unusual for her. I'm a bit of the cottage with walls that whisper worried now.‘ stories of art history. Through the old *** kitchen and small hallway, into the lounge. ‗Holy shit, I don't believe it!‘ He Jenna drives flat out down the hill again. ‗Pull over. I'm gonna drive.‘ Jonno gets runs from room to room, looking at the in and heads the vehicle back to the small empty walls. town from which they came. ‗My dear Tom, someone has beaten you ‗What the hell are you doing?‘ to it!‘ Roland laughs arrogantly. ‗I suppose I shall just have to enjoy your ‗Okay Jenna, here's the plan. We can ‗Don't worry grandpa, I just need to buy a hospitality for the evening and then be on drop these paintings back. No one will little time. My mate will be along shortly my way,‘ he says as Tom falls into the know they were ever taken and we can closest seat. to unlock you. Just don't over react and piss off and have a good life for a while. everything will be fine.‘ Jonno turns the ‗This is disastrous!‘ Start somewhere new. If we head back radio on for the driver and closes the now, we haven't really done anything door, walking to his car with the money ‗I'll make my way back to tell your wife. wrong. Kind of ...‘ and the paintings. ‗Drive woman, drive!‘ Best that I'm not here when the police Jenna sits silently. ‗You've stuffed it all arrive.‘ *** up. It's not what we planned, Jonno. We *** planned to sell them and skip. That guy Back in the old mining town, Tom and will track us down or give us up to the Gail have arrived early. Gail gets the dog Gail sits on the couch in the cottage, holding her husband's hand while the cops and we'll be screwed.‘ some food while Tom talks to the guy from Sydney. She hasn't met him before. constable asks a lot of questions. ‗Who ‗Jenna, if we go back now, put the ‗Why was Tom so insistent that he invite has access to the cottage?‘ The policeman paintings back up, no one will know. tries to sound like he knows what he is this horrid man, ―Roland‖? We weren't Tom and Gail won't be back yet. We can doing. supposed to come back here until next take this cash, it's heaps of money and we Tuesday. And that bloody BMW that he Tom wonders to himself. Jenna? ‗Jenna can disappear. What's that guy gonna say adores!'‘ knows where the key is, she cleans here to the police? ―Sir, they took the money I every time an artist has finished their was using to buy stolen paintings?‖‘ ‗Something to drink, gentlemen?‘ She residency. But she's so sweet. Couldn't be Jenna sighs and silently nods her head. pours them both a beer and says she her. She wouldn't know how to sell them needs to unpack and freshen up. *** anyway? No ... What was the name of The men stay at the table.

The young constable of the town is quite that artist who stayed here last June, excited by the case. ‗Things like this just Gail?

That man, the sculptor.

You know ‗So what do you think you can get for don't happen ‗round here. This is a big the one that was screwing all those young them?‘ Tom asks. case. This could be promotion material.‘ wannabes?‘ ‗The problem is being able to get rid of The policeman bids goodnight to Tom ‗Oh … Jeffrey?! Don't be ridiculous, them. They are very well known, much and Gail. He gets in his car and drives out Tom! I think your jealousy is twisting harder to offload.‘ of town but slowly heads off the road and your mind! Darling, who else knew lowers his lights. He can see Tom and ‗If that's the case why the hell did I bring where the key was?‘ Gail asks her Gail's place from where he is placed. He you here?‘ husband. will wait and watch. ‗Now, now, Tom. I didn't say impossible, ‗Really it's down to Jenna and any of the The ambitious policeman sees the couple just a more limited market, my dear. And artists that have stayed here. But Jenna? I make their way up the drive and head besides, I need to see them before doubt it.‘ into the house. ‗Who is the third person at anything can happen. You know how it ‗Let's get her on the phone, get her over the table through the window?‘ He calls works.‘ here, in case she saw anything in the vehicle plates. ‗Dodgy. Roland ‗Let's go there now.‘ Fischer. Never convicted but well known suspicious.‘ ‗Gail!‘ he calls out, ‗we'll be back in a for ―handling‖ things people need to ―get ‗No answer.‘ Gail sighs. ‗Try the pub,

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through the window, not too close, he‘s having trouble staying upright. He can‘t make out who it is but decides that he must act quickly. But do what? Run back to the policeman whose vehicle is now defunct? ‗Shit! What have I done?‘ As he stands in the cold, panicking, he can hear footsteps. He flops down just below the verandah and watches a man come *** around the corner to the window. The The town is covered in a blanket of black, man has a balaclava over his head and he there is no moon. At the cottage, in the stands very close to the window, calling dark, Jenna can‘t find the key.‘ It‘s out someone‘s name. Tom‘s not sure bloody gone Jonno, where the hell did what he said. you put it?‘ From inside the dimly lit cottage Jonno ‗Under that bloody rock is where I put it exclaims, ‗Shit! Tony! What the hell are … shit! We‘ll have to break in.‘ Standing you doing here?‘ in the darkness he holds his jacket over ‗That goddamn guy you left in the car is the window and cracks it with a shifter.

The glass makes high pitched clinks and dead.‘ he puts his hand through the window to ‗What?‘ open the lock. He jumps through the ‗You heard me, man, dead.‘ window and asks Jenna to pass the suitcases. ‗Shit! I don‘t remember where ‗How did you find me?‘ any of these go, do you?‘ ‗Your car is across the road, idiot!‘

at the red Mercedes. The two men pull and push the driver into the passenger‘s seat and Jonno takes the wheel. Jenna follows behind.

Out through the winding roads and along steep cliff edges they weave their way.

They pull over at a clearing where the road ahead has a sheer drop that no vehicle could return from. The body is strapped back into the driver‘s seat, a heavy rock is placed on the accelerator.

Jonno turns the key, releasing the brake as fast as he can and jumping away from the vehicle. The three of them watch as the car flies off the edge of the road and plummets through the air. They watch it destroy itself against the rocks until it ignites and booms. ***

The sleeping constable is nowhere to be found as Tom, on hands and knees, feels the earth disappear from underneath him.

The missing ground is a shaft. He sails and bounces from edge to edge, too fast to even utter a whimper. The rock floor ‗God, Jonno, you and your bloody ideas! ‗Awright, smardarse ...‘ greets his body and the last air from his Let me in, you‘ll have to turn the lights ‗Man, I went to uncuff him just like you lungs is pushed with force and exits from on so we can figure this mess out.‘ asked. You musta gave ‗im a heart attack. the back of his throat with a grunting ‗No Jenna, someone will notice.‘ gush.

I‘m not dealin‘ with that on me own.‘ ‗Jonno, how the hell am I gonna put them ‗So where is he?‘ *** back up in the dark?‘ Gail is desperately worried about Tom. ‗In his car, mate, where d‘ya reckon?‘ ‗Ok, but just a lamp!‘ They light a small Lying in their bed, she knows he was ‗Jesus Christ!‘ lamp in the corner of the room and drunk when he left but he should‘ve been unpack the ‗treasures‘.

Tom is terrified. He must get help. He is back by now. Looking out the window moving as quickly as he can but he is like she can see part of the police vehicle *** from behind the trees. ‗He is still there, a blind kangaroo, knocking into things, The constable outside Tom and Gail‘s is grunting and puffing. His head is swirling for goodness sake! What on earth does snoring in the driver‘s seat. Tom creeps with alcohol and fear. Back to the that young upstart think?‘ slowly around to the back of the vehicle sleeping constable he tries to find his *** and puts nails into the tyres. Well and way. Tom can‘t see. His pulse is truly drunk by now, Tom is outraged that galloping, he thinks his heart will Jenna and Jonno drop Tony back to his the policeman has been watching him. explode. He trips on rocks and his jacket car. ‗Not a bloody word mate, to anyone, ‗Son … bitch. Treat me .... criminal, gets caught on fence wire. He struggles, or we are all in deep shit.‘ bastard … teach him ...‘ he‘s rushing. He pulls himself out of his Jonno stares into Tony's eyes, Tony looks jacket and it hangs, lonely on the wire, After committing his deed of revenge, down, echoing his words, ‗… deep ripped and abandoned. He feels that he Tom walks alone, stumbling over rocks shit ...‘ and bumping into fences, lost in the dark, has gone off course, he can‘t get his Jenna is at the wheel. ‗Jonno, let's get the towards the cottage. Sobbing to himself, bearings. He falls over and stays down. hell outta here. C'mon, let's go.‘ Tom is crawling now, so he can feel his grieving over the money he intended to way across the gravel, dirt and rocks. make, to get him out if the trouble he‘s Jonno hands Tony a big wad of cash, in. Bouncing through the back fence, he *** ‗Tony, not a word mate.‘ thinks he sees a light. And now a shadow, Jenna, Jonno and Tony speed away from He nods. ‗Not a word, Jonno. Not a two shadows, moving in the cottage. word.‘ m the cottage. The pictures are up on the ‗What the hell is this?‘ He shuffles walls. ‗Maybe not how they were, but Rebecca Wilson drunkenly to the verandah and tries to see close enough.‘ Jenna thinks. They pull up Hill End

Henrietta de Chook and her Totally Awesome Adventure

Aristidis Metaxas Katoomba

First Prize, Blue Mountains Winter 2011 Once upon a time in fair France there lived a chookette named Henrietta, who, along with her girlfriends spent her daily and uneventful life in a large Free Range Barnyard Henament far out in the Country. Henrietta was an average French Hen, dressed in a modest brown feathery Blouse, fluffy brown Witches Britches, a little red bonnet and Aviator Goggles. Why Goggles you may ask, well, she was known among the henfolk as a rebel and adventurer, that‘s why.

Her life, like the life of so many other chooks, consisted mainly of pecking corn, eating worms, laying eggs, running around the Barnyard like a mad ninnie, and occasionally going to the farmyard next door in order to socialise with the many handsome French roosters who would be hanging around all day playing cards and telling stories. At night they would fuss and argue as to who would sleep where and getting their hottie bottles ready in case there was a unexpected cold snap, even in high summer. Thus, a blissful life was lived free from worries or everyday concerns, with the occasional hen parties and the annual ‗Tour de Chook‘ 1K endurance foot race around the barnyard, or perhaps the ever present floating anxiety of possibly being the next meal in the pot and avoiding being run over by Dolly the sheep.

Henrietta suspected, really meant that they knew absolutely nothing whatsoever about this place except that it was forbidden territory.

And so, with much trepidation but great determination, Henrietta set, (an act of complete heroism and an event to be recorded in the ‗Chook Chronicles‘ for evermore), her right foot Outside-theGate. She paused momentarily, her left foot suspended in mid air ready to take the next step, (she was waiting for lighting to strike, or the great Purple Chicken from the sky to cast a thunderbolt at her and destroy her utterly and totally), but nothing happened.

Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, birds sang, and nothing-at-all-happened. So, encouraged with her action of complete anarchy, Henrietta proceeded, step by step, to reach the other side of this, to her eyes, black ‗Chickenland of utter voidness‘, which to us humans is known as merely ‗Route 102‘. As she was about

officer Le Clerc suddenly, due to an unfortunate lunch of bad Coq au Vin, developed an unexpected cramp in her right hand thereby contracting her trigger finger, and so releasing a torrential blast of radar beams down the road in the direction of our hen heroine. This blast, in itself completely harmless, was (due to the sweaty palm), supplemented by a temporary electrical malfunction in Marianne's radar gun, and therefore establishing a brief but effective link between her brain, the radar beam and the Henrietta‘s consciousness and instantly transmitting pretty much all of the contents of Marianne‘s accumulated knowledge into the mind of the chicken.

The blast caught poor Chookie right in the middle of her corpus callosum and instantly fused both halves of her brain together into one, everything went blue, black, green and purple, stars appeared in her inner vision, she experienced Satori and utter and complete N-O-T-H-I-N-GN-E-S-SSSS enveloped her frail and gentle being. When she finally came to herself, Henrietta first checked that all her bits and pieces were still in place, and apart from the elastic having snapped in her Witches Britches everything seemed normal and yet, and yet e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g was different.

As she returned home and stood outside the gate of her familiar nesting place One sunny day, it must have been late called ‗La Ferme‘, Henrietta suddenly, August, the daily ablutions were with a shock, understood that her mind, completed, all the girls had their dust which had been until now been occupied bath, and it seemed the day would offer with simple things like corn, eggs and nothing more than the day before. survival of the fittest, presently realised Henrietta, feeling restless and bored to cross this vast expanse of black that her world had become unfamiliar and witless, decided to explore the unknown nothingness, there lurked, unbeknown to w-i-d-e. Her mind was now filled with all territory, a place steeped in chicken lore Henrietta, just a hundred yards down the kinds of insights, possibilities and since time immemorial, better known as road to her left, officer Marianne Le knowing, things such as Vogue ‗The World Beyond The Gate‘, a space Clerc with her ever-ready and trusty radar Magazine, shopping at Woolworths, of the unknown and a land of mystery in gun in her sweaty hand, waiting for Truffles, Abbey Road, Skiing at Aspen, the chicken universe ever since Henrietta unsuspecting motorists to fall within the Pantyhose, Plasma 3D TV‘s, Playstation was a little egg. The elders in the coop perimeter of the never sleeping eye of her 3, Oprah, where to get the best leg wax, used to talk in hushed sotto voices about aforementioned radar gun instant cash Isosceles Triangles, Wikipedia, Bob this land of the inexplicable and when converter.

Dylan, Google, how to apply mascara, pressed, utterly and totally refused to decorating tips for Home renovators, discuss the subject any further, which As Henrietta was about to cross-the-road, Consumer Magazine, MasterChef, French

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Specialising in Individuals, Sole Traders and Partnerships Proudly servicing the Blue Mountains Champagne, The Rolling Stones, Police Procedures, Pavlova recipes, Women‘s rights, Global Warming, Taser Maintenance, Chopin Nocturnes, volunteer work in Africa, who gave the best deals in frequent flyer points, save the Whales, when to rotate the tyres on your car, and all kinds of other wonderful and mysterious things than had been, until now, utterly and completely unknown to Henrietta.

couldn‘t fake it, too much had happened and she knew that she couldn‘t go back to the way things were. Not that she wanted to, not really, and the memory of her astounding experience of this other world Sadly, Henrietta quickly realised that all and the feeling that something her talking would do no good, nobody extraordinary had happened remained else understood what she had experienced with her for the rest of her life. But just anyway, and how could they, they had what it was, well, she sometimes cluckled not been exposed to this mysterious and to herself, it was her secret and she knew mind expanding power that she, through better than to talk about it ever again. sheer accident, had been subjected to.

Chooky was totally excited out of her And besides, what were they going to do Henrietta eventually met and lived with a wits (she even had notions of writing a with all this new knowledge anyway, beautiful old Capricorn French rooster book about her experience, she would how was it of any use to them, after all named Pierre the Philosopher who could call it ‗Hen and the art of Motorcycle who ever heard of a chicken shopping for quote Plato, had a wooden leg and was Maintenance‘ and become fabulously Perfume at Printemps or Gucci with able to help her slowly come to terms wealthy and famous with a string of sexy frequent flyer point Platinum Cards or with the mind blowing experience she Italian Rooster Boyfriends and living on wearing pantyhose or appearing on the had gone through. They both lived to a the Amalfi Coast), she headlong rushed Oprah show as a celebrity guest, or ripe old age, every Friday they would into the chook yard where her fellow writing a novel or Blogging on organize a soup kitchen for elderly hens were doing their usual daily hen crickets down on their luck and in the Facebook? stuff, stomped her right foot three times evenings, when sky was dark and clear, So, she thought ‗twas a far better thing to on the floor (and we all know how hard it they would sit outside their little chook keep her beak shut, her social life is for a chicken to stomp her feet) and house that Pierre had built from an old declined to absolute zero virtually discarded Apple crate, and watch the called out: overnight, days and months passed, the moon rise and the stars come out. Pierre ‗Girlfriends, Girlfriends, listen to me, seasons changed, life returned to normal would crow and Henrietta would sing stop what you‘re doing, there is so much in the chicken yard, frogs croaked, birds ‗Alouette‘. more to life than we know, there are sang, Henrietta was declared the resident wonderful things to explore, experience nutter by consensus and someone to be And the moral of the story? Well, and to see, come, I have good news for avoided at all costs. Her fellow hens Henrietta had to learn the hard lesson that you, I have seen more than you can began whispering behind her back, young the difference between a wise hen and a chicks with their fluff still on their heads mad chook is that the wise hen knows imagine.‘ would laugh at her and call her funny when to keep her beak shut. m Her fellow Hens stood dumbfounded, names, and so, Henrietta lived her life as they listened to what she was trying to an exile for a while, doing the best she say, they clucked, but had no idea what could to be like the other chickens around Aristidis Metaxas on earth Henrietta was raving on about, her, but her life never was the same as Katoomba none of it made any sense, they could not before, no matter how she tried she

Bright Spark

even comprehend what she was saying, their Hen minds had not been expanded to this new level of consciousness and it was all ‗too far out‘.

First Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2011

Hello White Cockatoo I‘ve Been waiting for you.

One day her heart stopped beating Her time with life was brief and fleeting.

My night was long, lonely and dark Now here you are, Bright Spark.

I feel scared and sad, that‘s the truth But then show up and give me proof

I feel warm, joyful and light When I see flashes of your yellow and white.

A fallen feather, a mighty screech A smile creeps in, you‘re both in reach.

You have come to me every single day Since the moment my sister passed away.

My sister is free and with you now Look after her, look after me somehow.

I KNOW you are her, she is you That‘s why I love you White Cockatoo.

Now that I can see her in you I KNOW she lives on, White Cockatoo. m

Zoya Kraus Blackheath

Cathy Tanaka Blackheath

Spin Me Round Sky Second Prize, Blue Mountains Winter 2011 Spin me round sky On my heels, arms flung high Sketch my form in moonlit dyes And spin me round, spin me round Spin me round sky

Becalm my mind with dulcet breath Through the teeth of rugged depths And raise your arms of ragged trees To issue expirations to appease

Make my feet of clay and stones My legs of craggy, weathered bones My belly form of wooded splendor My hair of breezes, keen yet tender

For constellations gathered here With breathless glimmer beckon near And trembling, lilting harmonies Charge this restless joy in me

Stain my hands heath black with night Reaching out for endless light Bejewel my fingers, one by one And press my nose to stars that hum

So, spin me round Oh, spin me round sky On my heels, arms flung high Etch my soul with midnight sighs And spin me round, spin me round Spin me round sky m

Though my heart in trepidation Echoes ghostly excitations For hurrying spirits tremble still And long dead elders haunt your hills

Vide Grenier

Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Spring 2011

Monsieur Farfalu was bored. His lover had left him last week and he had finished his vin ordinaire the previous night. He was loath to start on his good wine, so he must go out into the village to stock up.

Taking his moto¹ from his back garden he putted into the local town to have a look around and buy much needed produce.

As he drove along he noticed vide grenier² taking place outside the house of one of the mushrooms of foreigners that had been popping up in the last twenty years. He grunted as he passed taking in the two women at the stall.

Marina and Veronika had been at their stall since 6am sipping coffee and exchanging the desultory conversation of friends who know they will spend a whole day together and so are in no rush to make a gossip deadline. The stall was actually all Veronika‘s with Marina (a sporadic local) being drafted in to help and keep company. The coffee was good,

the weather was fine and it looked like being a lovely day for it.

Being a Saturday all the locals were out in force. M. et Madame LeClare stopped to chat and snoop, but didn‘t really want anything. Some English people on holiday recognising a possible compatriot came over for advice on and directions to the local sights. A man approached looking at a set of four wooden folding chairs and asked to purchase them. He would check his house for the size and would phone Veronika to see if they were still available.

M. Farfalu backtracked on his moto, leaned it against a wall and approached the stall. Like the previous local, his eye was on the set of four folding wooden chairs and he was about to have a little fun. After not much thought Veronika had set a price of four euros each for the chairs with a combined price of €14 for taking all of them. M. Farfalu asked for one chair for only €3.

Samantha Miller Faulconbridge

‗If I‘m to break up the set, I want my €4‘, said Veronika staunchly. ‗Pah!‘ said M. Farfalu, getting into his stride, ‗It isn‘t worth it for me.‘ ‗So, don‘t buy it,‘ Veronika stuck to her guns.

M. Farfalu bargained back and forth enjoying himself immensely, but Veronika wouldn‘t budge. So off went M.Farfalu to do his shopping.

When Veronika was ready for lunch, she and Marina agreed to take turns for a break. M. Farfalu was in the area and saw his chance. He thought Marina was a fine looking woman and he was in need of a woman himself.

Sure enough, the coast being clear M. Farfalu wandered across to her and sat in the chair vacated by Veronika. Smiling his best smile and exuding the fumes of his time at the village bar, he offered her five euros for two of the chairs. Leaning a little back from him, Marina explains that

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7

they are not hers to sell and perhaps they are already sold anyway.

Disappointment etched on his face, M. Farfalu scans the stall. ‗Do you have anything to drink?‘ he asks.

Mystified by this turn of events, Marina replies, ‗No, this is a vide grenier stall, not a bar.‘ ‗Ah,‘ he then says as if he has won a major point, ‗then come to the village bar with me.‘ With Marina declining this kind offer, M. Farfalu takes himself off to the village bar, humming to himself.

On Veronika‘s return, they discuss their recurrent visitor and decide that if he tries again for the chairs the price will be €4 for one chair, but he can have two chairs for €6.

M. Farfalu is down, but not out.

Fortified by his next trip to the bar, he is ready to return to the fray. ‗Two chairs for €5‘ he cries. ‗You can bring them to my house, it‘s not far.‘ ‗Of course, not,‘ Veronika says. ‗This is a vide Grenier, not a shop.‘ She smiles and waves her arms dramatically at the items left on the stall. ‗The price is €6 for the two chairs and you must take them yourself.‘ ‗But Madam, I am on my moto. What would you have me do?‘ He pleads with a gleam in his eye, belying his attempts to look pathetic. ‗How will you feel tomorrow, when you take up your newspaper to find I am dead by the roadside with the two chairs wrapped about my neck?‘ He gestures dramatically. ‗Will you not then feel guilty and wish you had delivered the

Opinions Vary sun divulges afternoon expectations brute anxieties blur into birdsong distant dog bark sucked into the sculpted spaces of the valley

chairs?‘ Though M. Farfalu was very pleased with this visual, it didn‘t have the desired effect with both women stoutly declaring their lack of any finer feelings with regards to his safety in the matter.

The wind knocked out of his sails, M. Farfalu slumped a little, before sadly telling the women that he could get his van, but he really didn‘t feel like riding home and then driving back to pick up the chairs.

‗I don‘t want a drink,‘ Veronika replies. ‗Cake then. I have just bought a lovely cake,‘ he offers. ‗And how much did you pay for the cake?‘ Marina asks.

On finding the cost of the cake was the difference of the offer and the cost of the chairs, the two women fall about laughing. ‗If you hadn‘t bought the cake you are offering us you could have paid for the chairs,‘ they say.

At that M. Farfalu perked up. An idea had so obviously implanted itself in his mind that Marina felt as though a light bulb should appear above his messy salt and pepper coiffure. ‗It‘s too late now,‘ he says ‗those chairs won‘t sell this time in the afternoon. You should just let me have them for €5 and deliver them to my house, or you will just have them left on your hands,‘ he warns.

Well, Veronika doesn‘t mind keeping the chairs and so after all this time, no bargain is struck at all.

M. Farfalu is pleased with his day. He has stocked up his supplies, had a nice drink and renewed his appreciation of the females of the world. He leaves with Veronika‘s address in case the chairs will fit under the shelf in his boat.

He smiles as he weaves away on his moto, Veronika‘s parting shot reverberating in his ears. ‗Don‘t bother driving over if you aren‘t ‗What do you think is in it for me to drive prepared to pay the €6.‘ m to your village just to deliver two chairs for €6?‘ Veronika asked. ‗It costs more than that in petrol and I won‘t be getting ¹A low cc motorbike or moped the chairs.‘ ²A vide grenier is a garage sale, as charming direct translation being ‗empty M. Farfalu has another try. attic‘. ‗Oh, but I will give you a nice drink on my boat.‘ Samantha Miller Faulconbridge

Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Summer 2010 too much beauty for sky to contain molecules hammer against true silence clouds swivel & cavort your tears mean nothing to the gumtrees m

David Bowden Medlow Bath

Faustus

Alan Lucas Katoomba

Second Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2011

Doctor, you know the way I am, on this level, all things are possible.

I will, as you have, always take the underground, and when we arrive Cerberus will sniff at Hades gates for our mortal sins.

Doctor, you also understand how ancient images are reimposed by modern incredulity, strangers are not met for any particular reason, and situations occur within a similar context.

We know that Santos Vega will always show up for his contest with the devil.

The Christ was likewise tempted, ‗ask for anything‘, he was told.

He refused, we do not. m

Ode to Tony

Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Winter 2011

Brendan Doyle Wentworth Falls

O Tony of TLC Auto Repairs,

But you, Tony, whom I had not seen for almost a summer,

may your business flourish ever more,

welcomed me with your shiny smile:

may the tooth fairy replace your top plate

‗Is that door lock still working?‘

with metallic finish white pearls.

O Tony, my heart stalled, I swear, when the bloke at Waitara said ‗I can see a thousand bucks there

and I knew your friendship had not wavered.

O Tony, when you handed over that pink slip and said ‗Eighteen dollars‘ I wanted to win the lottery and give you half,

just for the rust‘ and sent me

I wanted to replace all the seals on your Datsun ZX

to the old Hungarian at Betta Batteries

and personally blacken the tyres,

who quoted me six hundred

but I just reached into my pocket

for windscreen scratches,

and gave you ten bucks ‗for a beer‘.

welding and a brake pedal rubber.

You‘d made my day, my month, my year m

9

10

1 Honour Avenue Lawson NSW 2783 P: 4759 2882 W: www.mountainsre.com.au

The Dancing Suit Third Prize, Central Tablelands Spring 2011 As Robert Benfield removed the lid of the old cardboard box, the card slipped out onto the bed covers.

Deceased Estate of Rupert Maxwell $50.00 Robert didn‘t know why he was doing this. He had two left feet. He loathed dancing. As a matter of fact, he hated socialising. Beckett had talked him around again. How did he always manage it?

Robert glanced at the seven faces printed on the sheet of yellowing newspaper. They were all raven haired girls, similarly attractive, but definitely not his type.

Blondes? In a pinch. No, Robert‘s tastes ran more to the classic Irish beauty, flaming red hair and a spattering of freckles. The mental image of Mary Willis made his cheeks burn.

Beckett stopped in mid conversation as Robert entered the hall. There was no sign of his usual hesitance; all the clumsiness was gone, replaced by a slow, confident glide. His shoulders were square, no customary slouch, his chin high. ‗Well, well,‘ said Beckett. ‗I hope you don‘t change into a pumpkin at midnight.‘ Robert spun about, trailing a toe, sliding into a Fred Astaire pose. ‗Not a chance,

His confidence soared. At nine o‘clock this morning, he was ready to call Beckett and cancel but now, Robert couldn‘t stop smiling.

He smoothed back his sandy hair at the temples. ‗To die for!‘ ***

around the dancefloor; their steps were so smooth, gliding between the other couples like phantoms. Pachabel‘s ‘Canon in D’ built toward a crescendo of twirling satin on silk, ending in an extravagant dip with the final fading note.

The girl was breathless but Robert touched his lips to her hand and was off to look for his next partner. ‗Seriously,‘ Beckett said, ‗Rob‘s got it for you, bad.‘ ‗He‘s never even spoken to me,‘ Mary Willis replied. ‗That‘s because he‘s shy.‘ ‗Yeah, right!‘ They both looked to the dance floor where Robert lorded with yet another partner. ‗Around you, at least.‘ ‗He hasn‘t stopped.‘ Mary sighed. ‗Well, he‘s usually shy. I don‘t know what has gotten into him tonight. He hates dancing.‘

‗Perfect,‘ he said, laying the newspaper aside.

He fingered the suit lapel.

Black tails complete with silk shirt—so white it shone blue under the harsh fluorescent lights of the New Haven apartment—a silk bow tie, vest and tastefully chunky cufflinks of onyx and gold. The suit had a slight musty smell and an almost invisible brown stain in the right sleeve of the coat but it fit like it was tailor made. He thought the tie would cause him some problems but to his surprise, as he looked in the mirror, he couldn‘t find any fault with the bow.

Strange …

JE Doherty Eglinton

pal.‘

When Robert saw Mary, a flush spread across his cheeks and he almost stumbled as he approached.

‗Where on earth did that come from?‘

‗Now, that‘s the Rob we‘ve come to ‗I have absolutely no idea.‘ Robert didn‘t know and love,‘ Beckett drawled. know if Beckett meant the ‗pal‘ or the Robert‘s cheeks reddened even more. He dance move. Either way, the answer was was slipping further into his customary, the same. insecure self. The cast of his eyes The string quartet took the stage and gave dropped and his shoulders began to stoop. their instruments a final cat-screech tuning. For someone who hated dancing, Robert couldn‘t wait to get on the dance floor. He strode up to the first vacant girl he could find. ‗Would you care to dance?‘ He asked with charm that surprised even himself. ‗Why not.‘

‗H … hi.‘ Mary‘s quirky smile brought Robert‘s head back up. Her teeth were slightly crooked, but that small imperfection only heightened her appeal. Robert couldn‘t force his mouth to work. ‗Told you he was shy,‘ Beckett laughed, slapping Robert‘s back.

The cello sighed a slow bass as they took ‗Would you like to dance?‘ Mary finally the floor. The viola and violins joined as asked him.

Robert‘s hand slipped around the girl‘s At that, something clicked in Robert. He slightly pudgy waist. They almost skated

long black hair and white carnation threaded above her left ear. His arm slid away from Mary and the tide of dancing swept them apart.

bowed with a flourish of hands. ‗It would be my pleasure, Mary.‘ ‗I thought you didn‘t like to dance?‘ Beckett joked. ‗It‘s the suit,‘ Robert replied. ‗I can‘t seem to stop.‘ He took Mary‘s arm with confidence.

There are green eyes, and there are green eyes. Most were misty, more grey than green. Clarity was the best word Robert could find to describe Mary‘s eyes. They were sharp, gem-bright and clear. Robert was lost and he had never been happier.

They danced and the music played on.

Robert caught a flash of dark hair for the corner of his eye. Mary was talking but he couldn‘t seem to focus on her words.

He turned as the dancers reeled about him, his eyes following the girl with the

The Loaf of Bread

***

Mrs Benford was annoyed. She was always telling Robert to turn off his light when he left the room. He didn‘t pay the Something was nagging at the edge of his bills. She saw the scattering of clothes on mind, but everything dissolved, the the floor and the box and papers strewn over the bed. If it wasn‘t for her, her son music, the crowd, Mary … would be living in a pig sty. She scooped A ball of anger and desire welled up from up the clothes and began stuffing the the pit of Robert‘s stomach. He cut through the dance floor like a shark. His papers in the box. face was serene, charming but a glint like One sheet caught her eye … shattered ice, hard and sharp, edged his Another body found eyes.

When will the killer strike again?

Mary stood with Beckett. They both Under the pictures of the seven dead looked on in disbelief as Robert and the dark haired girl with the white carnation girls, the story detailed the atrocities they were subjected to before they died. and satin blue dress left the hall.

Mrs Benford shivered as she closed the The girl was raven haired … similarly attractive … And something inside lid on the box. m Robert burned.

Third Prize, Blue Mountains Summer 2010

Melinda forged her way into the shop.

People parted for her, instinctively moving aside, confounded perhaps by the contradiction she presented. She had the daintiness of delicate fine china about her and this sat at odds with the expression of blazing ferocity on her face. Usually meticulously put together, this morning she looked slightly awry, like a child who had stumbled into her mother‘s dress up clothes, teetering precariously, as she did now, on her high heels. Her red hair flared out behind her, which, to her, was just another source of irritation in what was looking like a ruin of a day, for she had not had time to perfect it before she left the house. Bad enough that she had to have that meeting with the senior partner in the law firm where she worked, guessing that she was about to be taken to task for some of her more questionable attitudes and actions, and, now this outrage.

Linda Yates Katoomba

highly educated man, but he was a reflective one and he liked to puzzle out why people did the things they did. His mother thought him a bit of a fool and a dreamer, with his head always buried in books, but he had a gift for seeing value and opportunity where others saw none.

anyone else he had met in everyday life.

She had a shimmering luminosity about her. He‘d read that word in a book once and looked it up. Luminous. The word rolled around on his tongue like some smooth precious stone. And it seemed to him that she had this rare gift, but that it was lost to her most of the time, or that it He had served Melinda many times had been taken away from her somehow, before and thought her beautiful, despite perhaps by those who, not possessing it, the down- turned lines beginning to etch wished to destroy it in others. People themselves permanently around her could be funny like that. And cruel. He mouth and a certain hard edge to her was filled with a great desire to help her features. He thought she needed find a way back to it or restore it to her something to soften her a little. Children? and maybe, if he were lucky, bask with Love? Could it be that simple? He had her there in the grace of it. Or was this even wondered if he might be able to do just another of what his mother called his some of that softening, for he could see a fanciful notions? vulnerability hidden in that brittleness. It occurred to him that she might be But there was nothing smiling or funny or difficult and high maintenance and might luminous about her this morning, as she test his patience to the limit, judging by slammed the loaf of bread down on the the way she sometimes spoke to people. counter. She was all incandescent rage, His mother wouldn‘t like her. That much seething contempt, and oozing venom.

The fragile order of her day, so necessary he knew. She would think him a mug or And was he imagining that she was doormat and Melinda a bitch, and up swaying a little, her speech slightly for her survival, already lay in tatters. herself. But, when she spoke to him, she slurred? Good Lord. Could she be tipsy?

Keith, the shopkeeper, saw her approach. was often funny and smart and he liked Keith felt a sudden snaking fear that his Sensing the oncoming storm, he recoiled the way her eyes lit up when they smiled mother might be right. slightly and braced himself. A placid and into his. It sometimes seemed to Keith even-tempered soul, he was used to ‗It is mouldy,‘ she hissed. ‗How could that she was more like one of the people handling difficult customers. It was why even you manage to sell something in this in those books he loved to read than he was so good at his job. He was not a condition?‘ She could hear the

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(02) 4739 2466 unreasonableness in her own voice as it hovered on the edge of hysteria and felt the familiar sting of humiliation that always accompanied one of her outbursts.

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She sat in the car and ploughed into the bread, hoping it would raise her blood sugars in time.

‗I‘m sorry,‘ said Keith, ‗it must have been a mistake.‘

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and I will cure her.‘ By the time she got a proper diagnosis it was too late to undo what she had learned—that she was disapproved of, that she was a burden, that she was lazy, selfish, difficult, demanding, manipulative, irritating, that she did not really feel sick and was therefore a liar, that she was just doing it for attention, that she would always be left alone with her pain in an unsafe world, and called vicious when she lashed back at it.

She hated herself. She had done it again.

She had a knack for it. She had alienated another person in her life and, this time, ‗It must have been your incompetence, someone who mattered to her. Why did you mean. And now I am paying for it,‘ she never seem able to bridge that chasm she snapped. between herself and another? Why could she not just have told Keith that she had ‗You can have a refund, of course, or a diabetes, that it needed to be controlled replacement.‘ Keith's voice faltered. by insulin, eating regularly and often, and Her mother, meanwhile, her only ally, ‗The refund won‘t fill my empty she had not had time to stock up on food. driven half crazy with anxiety and grief, stomach, which needed filling an hour That loaf of bread meant the difference no longer knowing what to believe, ago.‘ between life and death to her, and her slipped into depression and self blame, unable to help her, as she was losing her People were staring, but Melinda was too anger was her only protection from the confidence and moorings and coming far gone to regain control. She knew they shame she felt at being different, as though her illness reflected some across just as unhinged as the would think, Keith would think, her professionals thought her to be. Even her reaction out of all proportion to the event. fundamental flaw or weakness in her character.

She had learned from bitter mother seemed to turn on her at times, for It had been happening all her bringing her into discredit, and remembered life. First they would father, believing the doctors look at her in bewilderment, then How could she expect him to her and friends that it was all to do anger, then move away in rejection, abandoning her to her understand or tolerate her? She had with her mother mollycoddling her, gave himself an easy out flood of overwhelming feelings, learned that she was too much for when it all got too hard, moving leaving her to struggle alone, in with her best friends‘ mother engulfed and drowning in the tidal anyone, but did not know why. because ‗they were normal‘—a wave of her own unravelling. betrayal that surely confirmed When she was a child she heard experience and instinct that the burning her own worthlessness. It had poisoned them muttering ‗spoilt brat‘ under their stake is never far away for those outside all her relationships with men, her breath, sometimes even bailing her the protection of the herd and always insecurity and bitterness driving them mother up with comments like ‗I can‘t there is the willingness of the mob to turn away, so fixed was her belief that anyone stand people who don‘t discipline their she loved would be taken away by kids‘. And even when they didn‘t say it, on those who are different. someone else and she, conveniently, she could read it in their eyes.

How could she trust that he, so seemingly being the odd one, blamed for it.

Judgements and assumptions without happy and normal, would understand the ever wanting to know the why. And any lifetime of losses that had gone into She believed that she would always have explanation given, always seen as an shaping her disordered self? How her to live with her fury at, and jealousy of, excuse anyway. health and people‘s response to it had laid others who seemed to move with fluid Melinda snatched the new loaf of bread from Keith‘s hands and left quickly before people could see her start to jitter and make judgements about that, too. She needed to eat before it was too late. She could feel her blood sugars jaggedly out of kilter and her thoughts descending into chaos, her own body turning traitor as if in confluence with the rest of the world.

Today was one of those days when she could be tempted to slide so easily into the embrace of that final, fatal coma that beckoned always, slyly, from the shadows, as soft and seductive as a lover's caress, more constant and true a companion in its ever faithful, watchful

her childhood to waste, depriving her of schooling and easy friendships, had made her always the outsider, feeling needy and clingy, at the mercy of her skittering emotions, frightened of the teachers and other kids who made fun of her sensitivity and lack of stamina. The doctors refused to do tests, telling her mother she just needed to be firmer with her or give her more TLC, depending on their bent, saying there was nothing wrong with her, that she was putting it on, a case only of motherly over-concern.

Then, there were always the other mothers, thinking they knew better, saying ‗Just leave her with me for a week

ease through the world, knowing their place, their rightness, in it, while she looked towards the losses yet to come, like health, stability and babies to love.

No. Better to keep him out. And not risk the grief of losing Keith, too.

How could she expect him to understand or tolerate her? She had learned that she was too much for anyone, but did not know why.

She often felt herself to be on the edge of a terrifying abyss, heard the roaring force of its pull, and, being frightened, she frightened others. Sometimes this happened because she tried to drown out

her fear by being angry and loud, as though she could make herself larger than the tug of this void. And sometimes it happened because her fear tapped into and found some resonance with their own and they sensed they might be sucked into the same vortex, especially if they were close enough for her to cling to.

Either way, they wanted to get away from future, were rolled into one big ball of pain that was as difficult to digest as the her. bread she had now swallowed. m Eventually, Melinda would come to understand this. But that epiphany still lay in wait for her future self.

Linda Yates Katoomba

Right now, it seemed to Melinda, as she sat in the car, that all her losses, past and

Stick It! Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Autumn 2011 Although there's lots that I don't know, I wouldn't say I'm dumb, or slow, but one thing makes my anger grow, around the silly season.

It's not the debts on credit cards, not even flashing lights in yards, or sending dimwits ―kind regards‖, or eating without reason.

There's one thing gets me going ape – that's trying to use sticky tape!

Now as a concept, it's unreal – you find the end and gently peel, then cut it off and it will seal your parcel like a beauty.

But can I ever find the end?

It makes me mad, I won't pretend – It nearly drives me round the bend; my language gets quite fruity.

It sets young hearer's mouths agape, ―That stinkin', bloody sticky tape!‖

but will it tear? No. It's too tough!

I'll try my teeth, I'm in a huff, and now it gets quite tricky.

I think I'm gonna bloody flip, 'cause now it's stuck down on my lip!

And now I can't cut with my teeth 'cause there's no edge to get beneath!

I rip the stay-sharp from its sheath ...

I'm not sure what I'm thinking.

The knife held in my cacky paw, I place it by my quivering jaw, then flick it upwards and, in awe, a pink flash through my blinking.

Attempts to cut the tape-roll clear have seen me slice off half my ear!

I scream in anger, then in pain.

This will be tricky to explain,

I find the end, hip-hip-hooray!

I stretch it out, to my dismay, it splits and flies in disarray, a piece wrapped round my finger.

I draw in breath, my nostrils flare, I'm stressed and very near despair, the tape rolls 'neath the fridge ... I glare.

I'll leave it there to linger.

My finger's weird out of shape because it's wrapped in sticky tape.

Another roll is standing by.

The gleaming packet caught my eye.

I'll wrap this gift before I die – won't let it win that easy.

This brand is number one, you see.

It's quality – now that's the key.

Just one thing that does not agree – the smell. It makes me queasy.

And now the tape's stuck to itself!

I pry it round and whack a shelf.

As blood pours from my de-barked hand, I swear at this expensive brand.

I simply do not understand, why must it be that sticky?

And now I have to cut the stuff,

but worst of all, it's been in vain – the roll of tape's still dangling!

I drop the knife, and where's it go?

No need to say, 'cause you all know – the damn thing stabs me through the toe!

My body's copped a mangling.

I scream and swear and, what is that?

My ear lobe's picked up by the cat!

I try to hop and close the door.

I hear a rip and then, I roar.

The knife has nailed me to the floor!

Can no one hear me screaming?

The cat escapes with fresh red meat, my ear drips with a constant beat to swell the blood pool round my feet.

Gregory North Linden

Oh, tell me that I'm dreaming!

'Cause now I'm stuck with no escape – and all because of sticky tape!

Now spurred on by the pool of red, attempting not to wind up dead, I wrap the tape around my head to stop my ear from bleeding.

From ear to hand, to stop the flows the tape must go below my nose – it smells as bad as siphon hose, but seems to be succeeding.

So now I'm stuck from ear to nape, to hand, to lip with sticky tape.

I take a breath and blink my eyes and slowly bending on my thighs I pull and wince and gently prize the knife from toe and floorboard.

I carefully remove my shoe and sock to see the gruesome goo, all soaked with blood and spurting too – a bonus for the scoreboard.

I'll have to get it closed up quick ... a bit more tape will do the trick!

Unwinding tape down to my toe, I wrap it round to stem the flow.

I go to stand and then, oh, no!

I should have stretched it longer.

Now there's no way that I can stand, because this super-sticky brand of tape won't tear and won't expand, the pack says, 'Nothing's stronger'.

Now, where's that knife I had before?

No! Get some scissors from the drawer.

The tape that goes from toe to face, it pulls my lip with every pace – a modern Quasimodo case – a look that can't be pleasant.

And now, I have one more complaint – this tape that's causing my constraint – its sickly smell might make me faint and crush my unwrapped present!

And as I fall, I think one thing – Mmm, next time I'll be using string! m

14

A Quick Fix TO: dadandmum1067@hotmail.com FROM: libbyloo22@hotmail.com RE: Hi from school DATE: August 27th 2009

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Third Prize, Blue Mountains Winter 2011 and now I understand better than I did before about Uncle Brian.

Michael Burge Leura

came up again this year I thought I‘d ask him to come along. Please don‘t get angry reading this Daddy. Please take some time before you just get angry again.

She told me something similar to what you said last year, and I want you to know I understand what you say, but I Dear Daddy, still don‘t think that means we can‘t see The school counsellor said that Uncle This is going to be a really, really long Uncle Brian. It‘s not fair really. That‘s Brian might have a special friend who email because I have so much to say after why I rang him and asked him to Family might like to come too. I asked Uncle your email last week. I can hardly Brian and he said no, his special friend Day. remember all my questions, there are just (James) was not going to come to Family I didn‘t think he‘d come. I didn‘t think so many. It was so nice to see you and Day. He might come next year, but Uncle he‘d even want to talk to me. He was Mummy at school Family Day. Fiona and Brian seemed to think it best if only he very calm. The counsellor said he might Becka think you look like an actor off an came along the first time. He said you be angry and that he might hang up on American TV show, one of the detective and Mummy have never met James. Is me, or be rude and aggressive. But he ones. They get to watch it in the school that right Daddy? was nothing like that. He said it was a holidays. I just shrugged because I didn‘t pleasant surprise to hear from me, and Kylie dared me to ask if Uncle Brian and know what they were talking about, but asked how I was doing at school, and was James were going in the Mardi Gras you can probably be flattered by the glad to hear I was doing Special English parade, but I didn‘t want to ask anything comparison and not at all offended, the because he liked English at school too. like that. Kylie has a cousin who‘s a way they were going on about it, okay?

He asked me if we‘d done ‗Pride and woman who has a special friend who‘s a I think I understand most of your email, Prejudice‘ yet and I told him we had and woman, and none of her family ever sees and I am glad you wrote. You and we laughed about Mr. D‘Arcy and how them. The only thing any of the family mummy looked so sad (or something) the girls were all so silly about him. know about them is that they both have before you left. I knew you‘d had a bit of Uncle Brian said he always thought Mr. short hair. One of them works for the a shock because of Uncle Council. Belinda said she I saw Uncle Brian for a minute before he probably drives trucks, but Brian being there.

Belinda just likes to get the It was the school counsellor left. It was when I went to the toilet. I was attention. who suggested I invite crying and I could see he had been.

He Uncle Brian to Family Day. I tried to make it that you, She also said I should tell said perhaps we‘d made a mistake, and Mummy and Uncle Brian you first, but I didn‘t, and I weren‘t going to have to am truly sorry for that, but I gave me a little hug. see much of each other on hope you will understand Family Day. That‘s why I that I knew you‘d say no or asked you and Mummy to Wickham sounded like much more of a get upset and I wouldn‘t get to see you come at lunch and not earlier. I know you catch. I have to say that gave me a bit of and Mummy properly on that day either. wondered why I asked you that, and I a shock, but I just laughed. Uncle Brian It‘s such a long time until the end of term couldn‘t tell you why, but I never told laughed too. There was a bit of an and we have all the exams before that and you a lie about it, did I? I asked Uncle awkward pause, then Uncle Brian asked Brian to the morning tea and he thought I wanted to see my Daddy and Mummy. me if you and mummy had told me about that sounded splendid and that he‘d wear I don‘t want you to be angry at the school him and his lifestyle. I said yes, we knew his best tie. When I told him it was on a counsellor. She‘s not one of those ferals about it. He asked me if it mattered that terrace he guessed there‘d be wisteria or or anything. She‘s really nice, and I want he was the kind of man who liked Mr. something, and I said the magnolias were you to go easy on her if you complain. I Wickham instead of Elizabeth Bennet, coming into flower then. He said he‘d get and I said that I didn‘t think it mattered told her about Uncle Brian last year, me to put one on his lapel. You saw it because of something we‘d been reading much. Uncle Brian then asked me if I was there, I know. I noticed you looking at it. at school. I‘m not going to tell you what sure I knew what you and Mummy meant. His voice was a bit wobbly, like it was so you can‘t complain about it, Daddy you weren‘t supposed to meet okay? But something in it made me think he was getting a bit upset. I asked him if Uncle Brian on the terrace. I wanted you he was upset, and he just said he was about what you and Mummy told us all to meet at the lunch when there were about Uncle Brian, and I asked the relieved more than anything else. more people around and I could be sure counsellor to help me understand it. She you‘d all behave yourselves. The I got his email address and we‘ve been took me aside and we talked it through, counsellor agreed with me on that point. emailing a lot since, so when Family Day

But when I saw you and Mummy walking up the front steps my heart sank, because I could see it was all going to be a disaster and that you hadn‘t listened to me when I needed you to. You didn‘t give me time to explain to you and Mummy in private about what was happening, and I am still a bit angry about that. I hope I will get over it soon though.

was crying and I could see he had been.

He said perhaps we‘d made a mistake, and gave me a little hug. Mrs. Taylor our English teacher was coming out of the ladies and I introduced her to Uncle Brian. She said it must be very nice to have my uncle here. I said yes, and had a little more of a cry, and he gave me another hug. Uncle Brian said to Mrs. Taylor we were having a few family problems, and that the school counsellor I thought Uncle Brian was very polite in was aware of them, and that I was going the circumstances. He left us alone for a to be okay in a little while, and I was. while and got us all a cup of tea and some Mrs. Taylor patted Uncle Brian on the of the nicest cakes, and talked with some shoulder and said he was a very nice man of the other parents while we had our first to be so caring of his niece. He nodded, talk about it. I‘m glad you didn‘t blow and he was gone in ten minutes, saying your top Daddy, but I do think you might have shaken Uncle Brian‘s hand when he offered it to you. When you think about it, there was no-one on the terrace who could have told that Uncle Brian is a homosexual, just by looking. He was wearing a suit just like yours, and he was quite comfortable talking with the other adults. I saw him talk to the Headmistress for a long time and she seemed quite at ease with him, and Mr. and Mrs. Banks wanted him to sit with them at lunch because they found him so entertaining. he thought it was best, and that he‘d be in

get him to come with them. I think they could see why, but he very politely excused himself, saying he needed to be at work for the afternoon.

I had to go and get ready for Romeo and Juliet. I know you sent Mummy with me so you could go and get angry at the counsellor. But she‘s there so we can tell her things we need to tell her. Things that we can‘t say to other people, even our parents. She never said a word about what you‘d said to her, just that I should try to understand your response too, and that is why I am writing, to let you know I am trying to understand.

Romeo and Juliet wasn‘t as fun as I‘d hoped it would be, not after the lunch we‘d had. Mummy was supposed to help me with my hair, but she had half an eye on where you‘d got to and I needed to ask Mrs. Simms to put my hair up for me. Mummy made no secret of the fact that she wished I was in a dress and not dressed up as the apothecary. Mrs. Taylor could see how disappointed Mummy was about that, but Kylie played Macbeth last year and it was her turn to play one of the I suppose Uncle Brian should have taken touch soon, and I wasn‘t to stay upset, female parts and as Mrs. Taylor told us them up on their offer because lunch with but to have a great afternoon and he‘d all at the last rehearsal that the apothecary come and see me in another piece of us was no fun for him. I didn‘t think it plays a major role in the tragedy, being drama another time. He didn‘t want me to the one who gives Romeo the draught to was fun either. You and Mummy didn‘t make much of an effort to ask about be upset and forget my lines or anything. make him sleep and appear dead.

Uncle Brian, and I know the last time you He gave me a present then, and I am not And anyway all the roles were played by saw him was at my christening. A lot can giving it back. It‘s too lovely Daddy. I‘m men when they were first performed, happen in fifteen years. To just sit there, not telling you what it is. I‘m doing this even in front of Kings and Queens of ignoring his questions, was so because I know you told me a lie when England, so there should be no problem embarrassing Daddy. Your face was very you said Uncle Brian couldn‘t even pay for girls in our class to dress as men. It‘s red and Mummy looked as though she you and Mummy the courtesy of saying a girls‘ school daddy, you know that. was going to cry. Even when the Banks goodbye. You thought I was in the toilet, family came up with Fiona you still but I was watching you, and you were so I think Mummy was just not herself after didn‘t lighten up. Can you blame Uncle seeing Uncle Brian. Uncle Brian said he angry you didn‘t even turn your back to Brian for excusing himself and having his thought it might have something to do say goodbye to Uncle Brian. Mummy coffee with them instead of us? looked at him and nodded, but you didn‘t with an idea you and Mummy might have about homosexual people dressing up like I saw Uncle Brian for a minute before he say anything. I think he was crying a little the opposite sex? I don‘t know. I was too when he left. The Banks family tried to left. It was when I went to the toilet. I upset by then to care and I fluffed most of

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Brian is an abomination. I had to look that word up in the dictionary. In my dictionary, it says this - ‗Something or someone that causes great revulsion or abhorrence.‘ I then had to look up the When I said that I didn‘t want us to sit word abhorrence and found this down with the counsellor that afternoon I ‗Disgusting, loathsome, repellant. In meant it because I was too upset. You opposition; completely contrary.‘ I then were angry and just wanted one of your had to look up the word contrary and quick fixes, but Daddy I honestly think, found this ‗Opposed, as in character or from the bottom of my heart, that this is purpose; completely different.‘ something that cannot benefit from one of your quick fixes. I know you‘ve had Please follow me on this Daddy, because some success at Church with your quick I am trying to show you how I really, fixes, but somehow I think it was best truly feel deep down about what you just to leave the day as it was and for you wrote. Yes, in Leviticus chapter 18, verse and Mummy to go home and for me to 22 it says ‗Thou shalt not lie with eat my dinner by myself so I could think. mankind, as with womankind: it is I know you were shocked when I said abomination.‘ I know you were worried that so strongly, but I meant it. I gave you that I would not understand what ‗lie a kiss and a hug and I meant those too. I down with‘ means, but as Mummy told love you Daddy, you know that, but right you we have had our sex education then I was so stirred up I couldn‘t sit classes last year, and I kind of know what it all means. I think there is a lot more to down anywhere. know.

I went for a long walk around the oval.

Kylie found me when she‘d said goodbye Anyway, back to the point, and that is to her parents, and we walked and this—by following the meaning of the walked. She thought Uncle Brian was words, from ‗abomination‘ we get the charming, and we made it like a scene out meaning ‗different,‘ and that is all. Do of Pride and Prejudice and that got my you see what I am getting at Daddy? sense of humour back and I half hoped Uncle Brian might lie down with a man, you and Mummy would still be there which is just different to what you might when we got back, but you‘d gone and I want to do, different in purpose. Do you don‘t blame you. I ate with my home see what I am getting at? room class, some of whom have no I read some of the other chapters of parents, or ones that couldn‘t come, and Leviticus, and looked it up on the that made me feel very grateful to have a internet. I asked permission for this from family at all. the internet room prefect and she watched A few days later I got your email. We me while I did it. Here is what I found don‘t get much time in the internet room, interesting. so it took me two sessions to read it and I It says ‗Leviticus contains laws and had to get permission to print it out so I priestly rituals, but in a wider sense is could look at it in my dorm. I can see about the working out of God‘s Covenant you‘ve thought very long and hard about with Israel set out in Genesis and it all, but as I said before I don‘t think Exodus—what is seen in the Torah as the one of your quick fixes will work in this consequences of entering into a special situation Daddy, it‘s too complicated for relationship with God (specifically just one of your talks and a session with Yahweh). These consequences are set out the Bible. Without you here to guide me I in terms of community relationships and had to set it all up for myself and read the behaviour.‘ section you‘re talking about, and that took me the rest of the week because we And from this I see that Uncle Brian just had a lot of homework and the exams does not want a special relationship with coming up.

God. But this does not mean we shouldn‘t speak to him, or that I It‘s pretty clear from the bits you quoted shouldn‘t have asked him to Family Day, from Leviticus that you think Uncle or that you and Mummy shouldn‘t be

Katoomba

civil to him if you see him somewhere, even unexpectedly. I would be very surprised Daddy if you said that was true, that you could sit me down in front of me and tell me that if Uncle Brian has a ‗different purpose‘ to you that we shouldn‘t talk to him or know what he‘s up to in his life.

After all, Mummy didn‘t take a lamb to be sacrificed a year after I was born, did she? And you have shaved your sideburns off, and we all like seafood when we go to the coast, and if we stuck to what it says in Leviticus, we‘d have to be doing all that, and you‘d only have a right to take one slave girl, and no more.

We don‘t have slaves Daddy.

Before you blame anyone for this you must blame Mummy first, because it was she who told me I even had an uncle.

There was a photo of the two of you together in an album she got out one rainy day when we couldn‘t go to the zoo. You were both in your school uniforms (and you both had some pretty big sideburns!) and I asked who was that friend of yours you had your arm around, and didn‘t he look like Daddy? Mummy looked at the photo a bit closer. I think she was actually a bit confused about which of you was which. She said you were the one on the left and Uncle Brian was the one on the right.

I asked her who Uncle Brian was, and she said to ask you. You never would tell me, and Kylie found him on Facebook because she is allowed to use Facebook at home when she‘s on holidays.

Please forgive me Daddy, and try to understand. One more thing to help you, and I hope it is a quick fix. I found it in Leviticus 19 verse 17—‗Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart.‘ Lots of love, Your Libby xoxoxox PS. I am going to pray about all this in chapel, but I am going to pray for Uncle Brian as well as you and Mummy. m Michael Burge Leura

Endings

First Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2011

Linda Yates Katoomba

remember the trip down. Everything is blurred. The family had already been ‘A cold coming we had of it, gathered at his bedside for some time.

We managed a hasty greeting, but my just the worst time of the year, arrival somehow signalled their right to for a journey, such a long journey, go, leaving me alone. Again. With him.

Sudden panic, seeing their disappearing the ways deep and the weather sharp, backs. the very dead of winter.’ ‗Oh well‘, he said wryly, not giving an T.S. Eliot inch, ‗Once they get the morphine into me, I‘ll be gaga again and that will be the end of any sensible conversation.‘ He There were two deaths that morning; my was referring to his reaction when he had father‘s and the bird‘s. Well, really there had his heart operation years earlier, were three, if you count the loss of some when he had to be tied up it made him so uncharted part of myself. Three souls delirious, calling out our names over and taking flight as if in resonance with each over, trying to climb out of bed to find us, other. though we were right there. John, Linda, Sunlight had been pouring into the Mary. Desperation in his voice. Lost in hospice lounge room all that week. A his own disconnection. pleasant, cheerful room exuding peace. ‗Dad.‘ Clumsy, hesitant.

My six year old daughter had spent most of her time there quietly alone and ‗Your sister will be bossing you all about patiently dividing her attention between now! Pity I won‘t be here to see you all the resident canary and her activity fighting over the bric-a-brac.‘ Is it books, as I waited for my father to die. My daughter‘s voice again now only a trick of my memory that Unusually calm, almost angelic, for have him rubbing his hands punctures the air. ‗It's like the Itogether? her. world has ended.‘ Nurses popped in and out now and ‗Dad.‘ I struggle with the words to again, as did I. ‗Does the bird get say it. He is already being wheeled helplessly as the mould grew, unchecked, down the corridor. Yet another back enough shade from the morning sun?‘ I across the ceilings and down the walls. had asked one of them, feeling the facing me. ‗I am sorry I wasn‘t able to … intensity of the heat through the glass on ‗Is he ok?‘ It sounded feeble even to me. to spend more time with you. my own skin. No longer used to the ‗He might feel better if his favourite ‗It is not enough. I want to add ‗I did not Sydney weather. daughter would visit him.‘ know you were going to die so soon.‘ But ‗Oh he is well fussed over,‘ came the Again there were things I wanted to say, that would have made it too frank answer. but didn't. This is how our conversations between us. had been for some time now. Since It had not started so amiably, that week.

His familiar shrug. Defeat in the raising motherhood had come between us. of the shoulders and dropping them, as ‗You can‘t take her out of school,‘ the teacher had said. ‗She has already been My sister, ‗Why didn't the doctor tell us though he had never expected anything better. It was there in the slope of his away sick a lot this term. It‘s so he was that bad?‘ shoulders. ‗I have to get on with things disruptive.‘ Me, ‗Because he had been hiding his now.‘ Dying he means, I suppose. ‗Watch me‘, I wanted to say. There were pain, I guess.‘ The week is spent going between his many things I wanted to say. Like ... ‗Why would he do that?‘ house, where my daughter waxes disruptive of what? Disruptive ... like ‗Lifetime of habit, I suppose.‘ breathlessly in rapture over the cable TV, death? That school might be the only ‗What do you mean?‘ and the hospice, which is, ironically, reality known by teachers, but there might be more important things at work ‗A lifetime of being unloved, feeling that round the corner from where we lived not two years before. We catch the train to inside a person which school had he was a nuisance.‘ Town Hall every day where it is de rigeur disrupted. ‗Oh.‘ that we go into Woolworths, our old But, of course, I said none of these Clothes and toys and the medicines that stamping ground. For her it is the things. were a constant in our life were hastily excitement of new toys and books. For Instead, I slunk away, guilty, beaten thrown into a suitcase. I still do not before I had started.

Mind you, I did it anyway. Had to. There was nowhere else for her to go except with me. Katoomba was a long way from Sydney and I was stuck without transport or willing baby sitters, even if she had been willing to stay with them.

My husband, her father, had not even answered me when I asked if he could take time off work.

The call had come from my sister earlier in the week. ‗He‘s at St Vincent‘s. We brought him here because he was in so much pain.‘ Voice stiff with accusation.

There it is again, my failure, suspended, hanging there. ‗She can‘t still be sick?‘ I try to ignore this. I had not gone down to visit that weekend as planned because of my daughter‘s asthma. It had been a filthy, damp winter and I had watched

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me it is the symbol of all I have lost in moving to the mountains.

It is still here, the bustle of Sydney. A kaleidoscope of familiar sights and sounds rushes in on me. The buses, the trains, which could take you to an entirely different sub culture in minutes.

The traffic. Traffic lights! The planes going overhead. I never knew I would miss the planes. Hyde Park, with the broken fish fountain, as we called it, where my daughter and I fed the ibis until the day one of them stole the sandwich from her hand, putting her in a fever of permanent indignation towards them.

It is a week filled with nostalgia, loss and longing. And happiness too, oddly. ‗Like before I started school‘, she says one morning. I do not add, ‗and before we moved.‘ My sister-in-law and I leave his bedside to go for coffee. I see that she is watching closely as my daughter starts to help herself to the packets of sugar, so tantalisingly laid out on the table.

Restraining herself. Waiting. Soon, my daughter progresses to the salt and pepper. ‗Stop that!‘ she pounces, in ambush. It is suddenly all too much for her. ‗That is not how you behave in cafes!‘

Scarred

Perhaps she is remembering back to my mother's funeral six months before, when my daughter's high, fluting voice pierces the silence with ‗Ha ha ha, grandma's dead.‘ My daughter looks to me. I am frozen in space. The universe moves around me in slow motion. Then I manage a scowl at my daughter because it is easier than standing up to my sister-in-law. The waitress looks over, making me feel all wrong, as my daughter‘s querulous voice rises, so I squirm and scowl all the more at her.

Safe, back at the house, away from the weight of judgement, my daughter says, ‗You never take my side. I wasn't doing anything wrong. I've been good all week.‘ I have no way to explain the complexity of my cowardice.

The next day I am in the room as a nurse tends my father. ‗Pity he has such a strong heart or he would not be lingering on like this.‘ I try to keep the edge of hysteria from my voice. ‗Yes, pity about the by-pass.‘ ‗He has such an unlined face. His skin is so smooth. His body is that of a much younger man. What a shame. He must have been beautiful.‘ I look away.

As I leave the room, my daughter runs up to me in great distress. ‗There is something wrong with the bird.‘ I go down to look. Yellow wings flailing hopelessly on the floor of the cage. I move it, but it is too late. I am there, an unwilling witness to his death. ‗He'll be alright.‘ I usher my daughter quickly into the corridor, away from the bird, where I see my sister mouthing something to me. I rush back to my father's room, dragging my daughter with me. The nurse at the desk gives me a funny look. I am disapproved of again in some way.

I have just missed my father‘s last breath, but not it‘s effect. A spell of stillness over the room, a hushed cocoon, my brother bending to kiss my father‘s forehead in a way that speaks of a tenderness between them that has eluded me.

My daughter‘s voice again punctures the air. ‗It's like the world has ended.‘ I move quickly towards her where she is at the window, watching life going on outside. Putting my arm around her, I say, trying to reassure us both, ‗Yes, but then it all starts over again.‘ m

First Prize, Blue Mountains Autumn 2011

You carry scars of absence From when you were small A brow unkissed Gentle jokes not shared A little hand not held A consoling arm not lain I‘ll heal the wounds On your big man‘s body At every chance I‘ll gently infuse you I‘ll hold your hand and speak softly My words and touch filling the years of want m

Linda Yates Katoomba

Mary Krone Glenbrook

Daniel

Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Summer 2010

A few years before The Phantom got sick I went away for the weekend and when I returned he had been to an auction in Burwood. He came home with two artworks, a huge suitcase, a set of kitchen knives and two cars—a little heap of a Honda and a huge vehicular beast—a black Charger.

life that remained, but useless to prolong it. The day my hero sold the wheels of the Charger to replace them with the wheels on a chair, a little of my heart was wrenched out. Yet he sat so brave, so accepting, so silently strong as he gave up this part of himself. It was not just a car, it was his life he was letting go, making way for his death.

‗Collector‘s item!‘ he insisted, as I made fun of his purchases, which he had I cried watching that car drive away up hidden in the shed and which I gradually the street. There went part of my life, our discovered over weeks. What the …? life.

Oh, the auction.

Youth drove away that day. A young man The Charger though was pretty obvious. called Daniel sat at the wheel. He had to Mostly it sat in the shed and he would modify the car to drive it—he was a just worship at it. Temple of the Road. Of paraplegic. The irony of selling the Charger to a man who could not walk Youth. Of Freedom. was at once warming and chilling. It One weekend we went away to the signified hope, and the lack of hope. mountains with friends and it was a hoot.

Daniel arrived at our place in a fourPeople would say ‗Hey, Charger!‘ and wheel drive, opened the driver‘s door, make the ‗V‘ sign at us as we roared up hurled himself onto the ground, hoisted Govetts Leap Road. his ‗chair‘ out of the back seat and pulled The Charger was a symbol of masculine himself up onto it. One, two, three. Noforce. In particular it was a metaphor for one would wheel this man. He was my hero‘s strength. The beast idled in the strong! And his conveyance consisted of shed. Potential with power. Everyone a plank with a wheel either side. No arms knew how formidable were those engines for a wheeler to hold onto! His upper when revved. Yet they were better known body was toned, tattooed—and he was for their purr! In the end the strength was young, he was vital. And my hero was to have little effect—only to maintain the hanging onto his body, his vitality, just

Fly a Kite

barely. Similar restrictions, yet the prognoses couldn‘t have been more different.

Daniel. He gave us advice about wheelchairs, pulled himself in and out of our not-yet-modified house on his backside, quizzed us about the car, and bought it. How wonderful for him to have it!

Now, five years or so on, I have seen Daniel again. I was out to dinner in the mountains. He was at a table on the pavement having a smoke. I wasn‘t sure it was him, but I kept wondering, and I thought I would talk to him anyway. He was going through some documents, and was whizzing back and forth, for a smoke, to get a drink—he seemed to know a lot of people. I had my card ready. I was determined to make contact.

When I was leaving, I went up to him and asked ‗Did I sell you a black car about five years ago?‘ Yes! I told him The Phantom had died, and he said ‗Well, he would be happy.‘ That was the best thing anyone could say.

So we chatted about life, the car—and he said when he gets it back on the road, he will come by and take me for a spin. I said I would like that. And he was hot! m

Second Prize, Blue Mountains Summer 2010

My father showed me how to make a kite.

I watched his fingers, in the backyard shed Construct the frameworks suitable for flight And helped to cover all, in blue and red.

We took them to the park to catch a breeze Which often was capricious, sly or wild.

So, several crash landed in the trees A disappointment for an eager child – But one kite, it soared in the sky that spring.

How I felt the pain, the power, the pride, In gruelling effort to control the string! ‗Keep on trying, never let go!‘ he cried A memory lasting till the failing light Is father teaching me to fly a kite. m

Sue Artup Lapstone

Joan Vaughan-Taylor Faulconbridge

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Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Winter 2011

I still remember to this day what he looked like. He was not tall, but then he was not short either. You could say that he was of medium height. His hair was light brown and he wore it short, like the men in old pictures of soldiers from the second war.

His face and arms were a deep brown. The sort of brown that only years of work outside in the sun can give. In sharp contrast his eyes were the palest blue that I have ever seen.

I first noticed him when he was still a long way off. I had come down to the beach to be by myself. It was very early spring and there was still a sharp bite in the wind as it blew the tops off the waves and flung them back in a shower of spray that made a hissing sound as it hit the water. Some were flung so high that they caught the rays of the setting sun and for a brief moment the air was full of sparkling diamonds.

I had pulled on an old pair of ski pants and my warmest coat to keep out the chill. I probably would not have paid him much attention as even on a cold afternoon like this there were usually one or two people walking along the beach. As he came closer it was his clothes that drew my eyes back to him. A pair of tattered pants that had been torn off just above his knees.

A shirt with the sleeves rolled up to above his elbows and an army slouched hat that hung down his back from a strap around his neck and which swung from side to side as he strode up the beach.

He appeared to be heading directly to where I was sitting. I looked away hoping that he would just keep on going and not stop to talk to me. I had come here to try to pull myself back from the edge of the

deep black hole that was threatening to engulf me. My life at that time was in shattered pieces. No matter what I tried or where I turned it ended in grief or bitterness.

John Ross Blackheath

For a long moment he just stared at me and then gesturing behind him with one hand said, ‗Beautiful isn‘t it?‘ Then, unasked he sat down on the sand next to me. For many minutes we both just stared out at the ocean as the shadows reached out from the land and began to claim the sea.

He turned to look at me and said, ‗Many years ago I waded ashore on a beach very similar to this. All around me was death and great suffering. It was early in the morning and no doubt it was as beautiful as this but I never saw that. All I saw was the chaos and destruction and all I felt was an overwhelming despair. I thought then that I would never recover from that and that my life would never be the same again.‘ ‗Well my life did change after that day.

But not in a bad way and not quickly.‘ ‗Years later I went back to that same beach and sat looking out at the ocean just like you are here today. It was the same as on that earlier day, except this time there was no pain and no despair just peace and beauty. I realised that even at the darkest times these things exist. Look for them The sound of his footsteps in the sand stopped directly in front of me. Feeling a and be patient. They are there.‘ slight sense of alarm, as we were the only I looked away from him and back at the people on a long stretch of desolate beach sea. The last rays of the sun were just I looked up at him. touching the tops of the waves. I felt my The sun was shining full on his face and I soul rejoice at the splendour of it. knew immediately that I did not need to I turned back to speak to him but he was be afraid of him. gone. m

Adrian Johnstone Hawkesbury Heights

A Wedding Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Winter 2011

Besides having to deal with the bastard. Unctuously obsequious posses highly potent deterrent used against the immensely hot sun bearing down atop of committed to the Toque Blanche have rising vicious vulture population forming my sweltering head, the swirl of ultra been following me most observantly, throughout the Southern hemisphere. No atomic radiation curling its massive exercising with a municipal argot of longer encircling the skies, waiting for universal arms round in high five motion, scintillating audacity the temperament of that inevitable period when the prey congratulating itself upon its insipid their tortured whim. With slicing blade plods its final, defeated step to the ground harassment, the gelatinous mould making and sharpened malice, congregations are and awaits death till they strike—some up the majority of my exotic Asian planned and meddled over how best to don't even consider the flesh of a newly infused cuisine wobbling gently inside a beget me. I hurry my steps, over the pink rotting carcass to be numero uno on their plastic petrii dish would soon surely melt flamingos swarming the grounds and choice of delicacies—but poised away to nothing. I needed to find a under the hanging women fastened with fervently for the kill, they attack in large refrigerator fast or the shaving of garter belts and only wearing designer numbers, picking and tearing at the American Scallop, Manuka and Brioche market Louis Vuitton stiletto heels. Their innocent victims on the ground below. If Glazed Walnuts mixed finely with perspicuously tender hypertrophic one is lucky enough, they flurry away Sautéed Capers and Gazpacho Roe Jelly genitalia dangling upside down, hanging victoriously with hunks of meat from still from the hooks of industrial tower cranes, alive and kicking prey, retreating to the would surely perish.

Before me, lined immaculately along the immaculately suspended by a trapeze of top of the wind blown skyscrapers after excreting corrosive uric acid on the satin dental floss. centre street—up along the harbour— ebbing tides and flows nipped slightly It didn't have to happen so quickly; I had bystanders below before settling down to nestle and feed their anabolic robotic into the Chinese washroom area of the only just gotten hold of Marionette young. front steps. The entrance alcove of yesterday and already this shit is business shops were pristine and happening. I was very amazed, even so Warranting themselves bad enough and redefining the fashionable post-modern much that my consternation, from their certainly horrific enough for us symbiotic charismatic appeal that in the past xenophobic organisms, they are could not be achieved by smudging red Samson's reply was as virulent still no match for the ferocity of the spots against sharp patches of black killing, one tonne giants: as possible but none too vulture scagliola. And I, like the insurgent the lime green and violet mutated Afghan militia on perpetual stand-by, desecrating for me to be Chinese Panda Bears which infest, nearby, Tarquin - Proud and Gallant roam and tear through buildings persuaded otherwise. customarily dining al fresco on the during the night. If not from the roof at The Pen on 39, one red hand on constant plummet of Pandas his mistress's thigh, keeps his steadfast quick formation which had developed accidentally tripping over their tremendously after such a short absence - hydroponic bamboo leaves draping the inordinate guard on the Etruscans. of which I knew from what previous sides of the abandoned buildings, Glazed above their doorstep, like a underestimated cynicism I had about the crushing helpless victims into pickled rambling profusion of enraged Three Legged Chair Formation garnishes, the relish should guard against debasement and pupal enlightenment, Transformation Organization would what residing vultures there are and were the detailed and stately prose surely be nothing in comparison to their repulse them enough, if, for instance, the intricacies marked within time new-found pugnaciously barbaric person were to survive a rush of greedy immemorial by Alighieri—the father of gastronomical vermin wielding Chinese proficiency.

Italian. Having shifted away from the pork blades, for the victim to maybe live relative confines of orthodox passage and From a small mason jar I quickly filled yet another harrowing day. divine comedic poetry, the man of much the lining of my tweed jacket with too late had his endowment meddled and rhubarb relish, a recently discovered The Toque Blanche shouted with fornicated with, till nothing more of what substance, not only once just a delicious endearment, praising the hydraulic blade scholars would recently decipher as gastronomical concoction, but now also, that was passed to him. As the Sous 'Elogio Allah' filled their academic books from rigorously intricate and meticulous chased him down from behind, pardoning scientific study conducted by the himself most embarrassingly - begging with much consternation and delight. mercy for his lateness—the Toque The dribbling precipitation from the petrii octogenarian, Hans Goldzimmer, at the Humboldt University of Berlin, founded Blanche stripped down the traditional dish was sliding down my fingers and by the liberal Prussian educational knotted cloth-button double breasted arms. reformer and linguist, Wilhelm von jacket and said most deliciously to pass It allured me only temporarily before I Humboldt, in Germany, a unique and him the oil-based lubricant. managed to duck another inept avaricious

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Call 02 4782 5596 or 0466 989 721 www.inbalancehypnotherapy.com.au 'Are you certain that's wise, sir? It's only midday and you haven't had your Boudin Noir Skillet and Dried Potato-Chip on Fig Salad and Vin Ordinaire Borlotti Cassoulet with Double-Sweet Vouvray; how will you survive?' the doubtful Sous embrangled.

The Toque Blanche held the small plastic bottle of lubricant high over his head and, proclaiming with shaking might—as he sighed erotically into the bright day above—squeezed the contents over his gelatinous encumbered body. He moaned until the confluence of translucent slime curled and oozed around his black chest hairs and past his navel before dripping finally upon the tarmac at his feet. It was only when he shivered and convulsed with delight that a lone Anteater trailed by nonchalantly and licked clean the trapped ants held fast by its sticky substance.

'Damn it, Gunter, don't you see that this is the most tumultuous time for me to extend my influence? I have been aching oh so into the morning hour.'

'So sorry, Sir. Not to besmirch your great name. Do accept our most humble, sincere and gastronomical apologies.'

'And so you should ... infidel.'

Unto me the crumbling crack of vegetable flaked pastry, supporting an egg cream centre, undulates my nostrils. I lighten the exterior for the soft texture to ramify me with utmost daft; its simple pleasures— as Camus felt in the Algerian sun—I succumbed wholly to.

I tread in puddles of decrepitly ulcerous fermenting liquidations, curdling and thrusting with encroaching globules of air conditioned filtered water. Its vivific glisten entranced me only momentarily to see its putrid base purl over unwanted Styrofoam containers and Polyvinyl Chloride insulated electronic cables before rushing down into the sewer.

I recoiled.

Beside me, saturated in an chrome detailed vehicular edifice, pulsating rhythms of African Voodoo combos blare

incessantly into my hip, inhibiting in me utter atrophy, excluding the swaying sensation of my bootilicious pelvis.

Solicit shouts curtailed from the other side of the street, over the flooding rainfall, and the circus clown, complete with slender flower tie and bright shots of pink on snow white, executes an elaborate technique of back flips over toward my side, narrowly missing traffic.

He lands immaculately with a smoke already lit between his middle and index.

With arms outstretched, his stern posture slowly sagged. He then dogged down a sausage filled doughnut handed to him by

a dominatrix patrol officer in red latex sporting baby seal ugg boots. From flawless undisputed sources microscopic surveillance cameras mounted directly around the purveying street - the lauding couch-potatoes were able to spot with every successive cycle of hands meeting upon the ground the nurtured seed to which the clown placed caressingly into after sowing the soil

beneath the ravaged concrete.

Chrysanthemum Coronarium bloomed in his wake.

Walking up the enclosed street hand in hand, the chivalrous latex bound officer blows a thick cloud of smoke at the Toque Blanche as they pass by.

Quickly the puff of smoke reaches all remaining.

All white falls to the postulated metaphysical enterprise of the grey beneath in a heavy pensive assortment of Mishimaesque empirical reasoning.

'Did you ever expect that?'

'No. They may slide away but the options are just totally incomparable.'

I turned to the gal by my side.

She reformed herself by sticking a finger inside her left nostril. Afterwards, having removed from it a detailed piece of Victorian ivory embroidered patchwork - a small knitted number with minute letters, 'only to the waste end' - did she reinstate that which she so intently and most dramatically implored unto me years ago.

'Not to what the Platonic scholars had announced back in the Hellenic Parliament do I now feel the beautifully sequenced transmogrification that is about to unfold.'

Uh-huh, I replied. 'Yes, it too could do with a touch of work, most definitely.

Listen, doll … there's this thing I've gotta do. I'm needed back at the office, pronto. So, why don't we say we'll shake this leg later, eh?'

Gracefully, as when a butterfly carefully leaves it comforting cocoon, she lashed me with an intent look of tearful yet hopeful exasperation.

'Don't worry, baby, we'll be in each other‘s arms soon enough.'

A tear rushed from her eye and a shadow leered by, long enough for me to catch his Masonic reasoning. He disappeared when I glanced toward his vector.

But soon she spoke again and I was yet again cast down by her hypnotic harpoon.

Her soft globulous mouth was poised for the moment and ventured forth even though it was chemically imbalanced.

'Yes, oh yes, dear … when the moonlit stars are far and wide, when Apollo speaks my name do the windmills of Evergreen fly high toward the plummeting bottom of the meteor crater, and when their insides spill from the gooey mess contained, I will then sense the touch of your warm vastitude. I will gaze far from the height of the eternal lighthouse.'

She stepped into a nearby store before we had the chance to express anymore.

Floundering through massive junctures, the rising water was levelling the city by the minute. Rushing to a nearby shopping vestibule, I was cornered off by deliberate shortcomings. The remaining entrance to the shop, and suddenly the district around me—arcades, promenades—had been conveniently replaced with an inseparable concrete edifice. Residing within the heavily adamant resilience of the concrete structure, reaching further than the eye could casually perceive, one exclusive accessible passage could be detected although it were only a passing route for those with a rule of thumb. Three identical segmented shapes were carved into the structure and coruscating neon lights aligned immaculately within the holes sprang vibrant agnostically induced temporalities into spiralling bombastic severities of mystically contorted cerebral fascinations.

I shaved hard. Harder than any man has done before, waxing intently my hard worn nipples until they became red raw, even at the splicing spasmodic consistency of the flashing blue lights.

Words and interpretations broke and popped open the pharmaceutical doppelganger upon a Nodachi Black forest pendulum.

I, as still, so became my ears, and then, once again, for they were the silent matter. It was only when I hunched down and took a step back momentarily that I noticed the three large holes carved into the wall were formed like an electrical socket.

Symmetrical and collectively rejecting art nouveau, pragmatically aligned dystopian temporality, a quasi-supernal figurehead cosmically contained, unconditional, mountainous, a delicate blossom of impressionist conceivability contemplating objective systematic unity by squashing its puny head against the path edge, swiping shattered teeth, pulverising them with fish into pungent little balls for the steaming nagging inconsolable pretentious children for their meandering and acquisitive monetary conversations confabulated disgustingly over simmering bowls of vegetable Seui Gau Mein before daily billion dollar realty auctions.

'I know you'd love it too, Agnus. How you'd love to see the confounding image.

In all its resplendence, I could not but once confer to think triumphantly of your willing despondence. When that homicidal maniac tore loose through the pillage of broken homes, you, and you alone, were the only one who stood up to him, who stood up and fought for your wooden cuspidor. And, buckled head to toe in dazzling armoury you swung diligently and heroically the raving feral cat by the tail at your feigned assailant.

But alas, he was too quick. Knocked about your head with a second inferior bucket that he left you with after he made his dashing exit, I remembered your saddened cry as you lay there with bucket to die.

Shit! You were absolutely covered in it.

You had landed directly into the pile the neighbour had reposed upon your lawn, and I dared not waste my princely hands to yours of filth and muck. Might I digress?‘ ‗Ok-ok … ok. Sure, we can do that.'

Samson's reply was as virulent as possible but none too desecrating for me to be persuaded otherwise.

We headed directly for the old swimming pool that day.

He later cracked his head open upon a splintered rock when diving from the highest region of the cascade.

The police hauled his body off with flashing red electrical tape to the premiere of his father's latest movie: 'Revenge of Turtle Neck'. The press reviews, although often too

accommodating, were consistently mediocre and proving only to be mildly successful when compared to his other previous astounding blockbusters until one cleverly conceived article from the space times presented his father's film in dramatic new light. Not only did they uncover alluring circumstances pointing out some major inconsistencies regarding the hero's mane - Tom Selleck - film critics found something more politically sinister. A few months after its Blu-Ray release, and following the movie's increasing popularity - especially among the retro favoured anesthetised bohemians - due to an anonymous tip, several heavily armed government entrepreneurs wanted continuous press interviews and all exclusive coverage to be stricken from public access.

Incriminating evidence had been filed against his father's name. Analysing several précis reports written by several undergraduate literary students, the police found massive, irrefutable evidence supporting the double lives of the Backstreet Boys, and their swindling internal power struggles for world domination, hidden subliminally within his father's movie. Quicker than a flash of lighting, not only were the Backstreet Boys—whose alluring and sexually enflamed timeless hits have flung Cupid arrows of pre-pubescent love to millions of heated teenagers frustrated with wanton desire—taken into a restricted access military operational containment facility stationed a hundred miles below the removed correctional facility at Treblinka, but also Samson's father. In these times, to speak of such atrocities is not only considered highly illegal and strictly classified but it's also ultimately forbidden; a sentence punishable by necrophilia slumber. To spend the rest of your waking life locked up, naked, with a late world leader of the jury's choice, to be forced to fornicate at irregular intervals or suffer a slow release of phosphoric nerve agents, which is to be later viewed on satellite television aimed at a substantial market for reasonably moderate prices.

Viewed beyond the sediment of pulsating vibrancy, fermented bean curds collected in a finely ornamented drinking vessel shaped like the firm rendering of a curvaceous bosom - electronically

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www.thetailorsapprentice.com Group and individual classes available implemented with musical micro-chips when tilted upwards 90degrees upon its flat axis sing the lamenting queenly woes ‗Oooooh, I want some more‘ were slammed down onto the lacquered alpine business bench in outrage, bemusement and agreement.

I checked my side. The water level was softening my shoe and was now within the entrance of the building. The suited individuals indicate through articulated and formulated gesticulation a number the catastrophic events relating to the imminent problem of commercial housing, to which - displayed against a concrete wall - were the expenditures and hazards now inherent in relocating and constructing formidable living accommodation around the already rapidly growing infrastructure and population. To where do they place the ever exceeding population, expressed profoundly with tip-pointed markers attached to their shoulders? In any indication of referral, if needed to be exhibited to the other board members, must now - since infused with said elongated attachment - be expressed by placing one's hands against their hips to be then followed through with fluid torso twists accordingly from left to right.

Generally, when conducting the aforementioned meeting, one must now address the other board members by facing northerly according to their easterly in practise with standard ergonomic regulations as outlined by the board members.

Nods of agreement prevailed against inconclusive arrangements.

Glasses clinked, coffee splattered, and violent red paint was thrown against walls and one another as tables flew high toward the ceiling in an abject display of financial sentiment. Later, when the dust had lifted from the oppressive dim canopy of the room, their bodies remained sparkling clean alongside and within the spectacle of chaotic artistic semblance.

'Ahoy there, me dear matey' came from afar.

Hysterically pronounced through serrated tongues, a distant man beyond the torrent, under his loquacious amused embodiment, hailed me down.

From this distance I couldn't quite make out the millinery of sporting goods he adorned. The baseball cap, his orange nylon tight singlet with self made tears mainly along the neck line and contrastingly matched with an unusually pair of baggy black white striped Adidas training pants only came to me upon further scrutiny. Not to mention the repulsive detail of his exposed pubic line popping up gently from atop his slowly sagging pants were only a few initial things that haunted my mind as I reluctantly crossed over. I could discern at closer range the slant in his eyes, and his Asian inheritance were not the primary cause of his excitement. And crooked teeth, to which he placed three already lit smokes surprisingly into his mouth. Two were to be later excluded importantly from his smacked gob to the outer protrusions constituting the soft flexible tissue above the sides of his jaw.

An industrial toxic waste disposal unit pulled up alongside his person. And for one ghastly moment his hysterical face retained the utmost ardent pride and seriousness as he flanked them down, shouted something in Cantonese, smiled, and then dismissed them.

They left as soon they came.

His face retained this searing pompous taut expression of austerity until the truck turned off left by the interstate sign after the five kilometre long stretch of motorway.

Enflamed by extreme hypertrophy that inflated his face of hot air, the man resumed his otherwise incredible hysterical ornamentation.

The man began to cry. He then started moaning in utter despair; yet remarkably thrust his arms outwardly at my cheek, tapping them in goodwill as if to hint to both I and he that all things will turn out okay. After a time, the man then transformed once again to his previous hysterical beastly behaviour. The flux of bifurcated personalities zigzagged and crossed paths quite spasmodically, yet was consistently marked by the consecutive sequence of laughter, pride and depression. It continued until nothing much of his face could be resembled as entirely normal and of which, in his penultimate stature, was nothing more

than an ethereal Baconian blur.

It stopped, affix with a deathly smile. He spoke, not a word.

During his suffocating pitch-bended haemoptysis, spasmodic abnormal congenital agenesis was coughed up quite distinctly, and fortunately, I did however understand his particular plea - as was so ethnically portrayed through his foul language - and resorting to trusty measures - not to let suspicion escape from his otherwise private colic confession - desultorily, I remained.

Dozens of leeches were sucking happily all round his torso. This came as quite a phenomenal shock as his hellacious Egyptian Iris break-dancing reciprocating formational routine abruptly halted by the zippering extension from top to bottom magically revealing his lacerated top and exposed body. As informed through his native tongue, a rare treat - to which any man could easily recognize - was nestled deep within his arm pit hair. Just grazing the swollen welts on his body, he managed to scrape away most of the cardboard biscuit without hindering its fragile complexity and smearing too much purulent blood.

He emphatically mouthed words.

'OK'.

Placing the small piece of cardboard under my tongue, like melting waxworks, the paper mache buildings began to slide away with the rushing current now torso deep.

Amusement overcame my senses.

I turned to the behaviourally transforming medically deformed Asian with innocent affection as one would like an infant exploring the new found world.

A gelatinous white mould formed his chocolate-chip ridden tummy. I prodded his tummy with curiosity.

He began to laugh as I did.

We laughed.

We heckled.

The water flooding the city eventually swept his melted face out into the ocean.

I've gotta find a refrigerator. m Adrian Johnstone Hawkesbury Heights

Black Future

Third Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2010

Gregory North Linden

I'm worried 'cause there are some folks who'd like to bury coal – the industry, is what I mean.

I don't know why; it's pretty clean, and such a great contributor to Aussie as a (w)hole.

They reckon that we shouldn't mine our ancient bands of coal.

I don't know what they're on about.

It's useless till we rip it out.

Yeah, maybe it supports some rocks, but that's a minor role.

How bored would all the water be without new depths to plumb that coal mines open up for it?

Old creeks are dull you must admit, and think what water might pick up and what it might become!

And if we didn't burn our coal, just how would we survive?

That solar, thermal, wind and wave are too expensive. We must save.

To tear out coal is cheap as chips, so mining comp'nies thrive.

Oh, sure it makes some greenhouse gas, but of our nation's sum, that forty-two per cent, as such, it really isn't very much, and starving trees of CO2 could see them all succumb.

Some cleaners would be out of work because of lack of dust.

No flyash, acid rain or gas means far less cancer too, alas, so doctors with no work to do would quit in sheer disgust.

But most of all we need our coal to sell off overseas.

Until they act on climate change, our coal is tops of all the range, with far less ash that brings about respirat'ry disease.

Old mines are great for shelter after nuclear attack, and open cuts become flat land, all cleared for suburbs to expand.

So, come on, keep on mining coal and make our future black. m

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Selling Green

Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Spring 2011

It had been a bad day for Peta Banshiel.

OK, shocking was not an inappropriate word for the fortnight. If she had to rate the last thirty days in her worst ever months it would probably be in the top one. Her divorce had been finalised after two years of horrendous litigation. He got everything, the house, the shares, the yacht, and custody of their wolfhound.

Not exactly how her friends had told her it would pan out.

of excuses with the landlord of the hotel.

To her surprise, she had been very good at it. That was due to her intelligence, naturally. A careful examination of the job had shown that the look was critical.

She was selling environmentally friendly power. People could access the grid without having to change a thing. It should be a no brainer given the current politically correct society. Hey, save the environment, feel good about your grand children‘s future and leave the budget The stress of the case had seen her untouched. You just had to get in the performance at work deteriorate to such door. Then past the cynicism. Oh well. an extent that after failing to make it back Appearance was critical. Peta‘s age was from a particularly long lunch she had been sacked. So here she was, thirty-one years old, a former darling of the advertising world, reduced to selling electricity schemes door to door. Green power, mind you. Right on. Right.

It was commission only work, but it was the only employment she had been able to find that she was prepared to accept. Amazing how quickly friends disappear when the money stops flowing, she thought bitterly. Tugging unconsciously at her ponytail she looked up at the imposing house in front of her.

Spanish in design, it had a heavy iron gate that opened into a courtyard with stairs leading to the front door. She detested doing these neighbourhoods in the stockbroker belt. The ostentatious displays of wealth flaunted by people with half her talent nauseated her. The day had been a catalogue of rejections from bubble headed gym bunnies or housewives racing to pick up their alpha brats. Peta thanked her lucky stars that at least she and Joel had not had kids. Take a big breath, she thought, last call of the day, focus. She brushed her jacket arms, checked her shoes and pushed through the gate.

Tony Dwyer Springwood

large brass knocker and thumped down twice, hearing the echo inside. At first there was no response, then she heard faint noises in the house. Oh God, thought Peta, at least have the guts to come to the door and tell me in person that you just aren‘t interested. She was about to try again, when she heard footsteps approaching. Peta stood back as the door opened and looked up at one of the most curious men she had ever seen.

He looked as though nature had taken the dominant features of a spider and put them into his DNA. Everything about him was long. Long legs, long arms, long fingers, just long. His high forehead swept up to a bald pate that appeared to have been cast in a centrifugal experiment. His eyes were dark brown with gold flecks that seemed to dance beneath thin brows. The only things that weren‘t long and thin about this man were his lips. They were the most amazingly sensuous lips Peta had ever seen, and when they smiled Peta found herself smiling back. ‗Can I help you in any way?‘ the man asked, looking down at Peta‘s folder. He was dressed in neutral colours, the clothes were obviously well made, fashionable, but in a practical, nondescript way. The more you looked at the man the more he seemed to fade into the background.

A little off balance, Peta used one of her favourite tricks for getting back in to the driver‘s seat. Grovelling obsequiousness. ‗I have no doubt that you can, sir, but,‘ she said, noting the small smile that her comment elicited., ‗my name is Peta and I‘m actually here to see if I can help you.‘ Let them ask the first questions, she thought, starting to feel good about this call.

perfect, all she had to do was look like a reasonably well off lass who chose to make a difference in the world. Her strawberry blonde hair still shone and when she pulled it back into a ponytail with a bob fringe she had the appearance Standing in front of the dark oak door she ‗How do you propose to help me?‘ the of someone committed to intelligent paused. She did a quick mental inventory protest against the corporate destroyers of man asked. His voice was pure velvet, of her surroundings, went through the with crisp pronunciation and an accent the planet. spiel to herself and took one last look at Peta could not place. She noted the man‘s her appearance. When she had taken the Satisfied she was ready to do battle, Peta body language. It was open. Peta smiled. looked at the door again. She lifted the job she had been broke and running out

‗Have you heard of green energy, sir?‘ ‗Only what I‘ve read in the papers, the usual stuff, wind farms, hydro electricity and all that.‘ ‗You know more than most,‘ Peta replied thinking that the man deserved a Nobel Prize for tabloid awareness. ‗I represent a company that allows people like yourself to support green power at no extra cost.‘ ‗How interesting,‘ demurred the man. ‗I am sorry, where are my manners, would you care to come in?‘ The door was opened and Peta peered down a dark hallway. One of the secrets of the job was getting over the threshold, do that and you were half way there.

‗Tell me, Peta,‘ Angel asked while fussing about near a great kettle before clicking it on. ‗Whom are you working for again?‘

exactly it, though, with the company, and the old bugger knew it. Just as Peta was about to answer with a half-hearted defence the kettle boiled.

‗Our company is called Green Scene.

Basically they use the capital raised from customers to invest in and support green and renewable energy. By showing this to be a profitable way of doing business they hope to convince other organisations to do the same. Eventually it will put these forms of energy to the forefront, which will have enormous benefits for the environment. The company has the endorsement of several environmental groups. The cost to you is exactly the same as your current bill but it lets you do your part in helping the planet.‘

‗Ah,‘ said Angel, ‗let‘s have that cup of coffee.‘ He spooned instant blend into the mugs then poured the water. Moving smoothly to the refrigerator he added a small dollop of milk to his own before handing a black brew to Peta. He smiled again, and for some reason Peta was filled with hope.

‗Of course, sir, very kind of you, should I ‗How ingenious, Peta. Who owns the take off my shoes?‘ Peta asked, looking company?‘ at the polished wooden floor. ‗It‘s a publicly listed company, started by ‗Don‘t worry about the shoes and please, a group of students who believe the only call me Angel, I don‘t like this ‗sir‘ way to make big corporations stop using nonsense.‘ The man smiled that gorgeous fossil fuels is to show them that they can smile again before he turned and walked make a lot of money with renewable down the hall with Peta following. They green energy.‘ passed two large rooms which both had floor to ceiling bookcases along one wall. ‗Publicly listed? Presumably they have Each room had a fireplace, a large central the same responsibility to shareholders as rug and leather chairs arranged around a those big corporations they are trying to coffee table. At gaps between the teach?‘ bookcases were pedestals with busts on ‗Er, sure,‘ Peta replied, uncomfortably. them. The remaining walls were adorned with mediaeval weapons and huge ‗And they use the profits of the operation canvasses of classical art. From the quick to invest in what you call green power?‘ glance that Peta had she guessed that they ‗Correct, things like wind farms, wave were not prints. Great, she thought, I‘ve got a chance to sell Green to the Addams generators and low impact hydro.‘ family. She turned right at the end of the ‗Hmm, so they are still selling me power hallway and found herself in a large open generated by fossil fuels, in effect, but are kitchen with wide windows that looked using the money I pay for that power to out onto a superbly manicured garden. develop assets in green production The contrast could not have been greater. facilities. This, in turn, allows them to Where the rooms she had passed were generate electricity, which they can sell gloomy and arcane the kitchen was back to the grid while also gaining straight out of a modern living brochure, massive benefits in tax breaks and with natural pine paneling, marble government funding. I would imagine surfaces and gleaming metal. A large that after a while this company would square table was the dominant feature have a marvellous portfolio, Peta, don‘t with a variety of pots and pans hung you think? There would even be enough overhead. Angel was taking two mugs left over for some nice tax deductible down from a cupboard. donations to several environmental groups, eh?‘ Angel smiled whimsically. ‗Coffee, tea, hot chocolate?‘ Who is this guy? thought Peta bitterly. A ‗Uh, that‘s very kind Angel. Coffee retired Economics Professor with a please. Black, no sugar,‘ Peta said, again penchant for the Inquisition? That was off balance.

‗For all my scepticism,‘ Angel continued, ‗I can see merit in the company‘s philosophy. How did you get involved in this, Peta?‘ Again Peta had been mentally railroaded. ‗I believe in the concept, I like going home at the end of the night knowing that I‘ve made a difference, I …‘ she faltered.

Angel‘s small smile stopped her recitation of the lie she told herself every day. ‗I needed the job,‘ Peta said quietly. ‗I‘ve had a rough trot of late.‘ ‗I‘m sorry to hear that, I know what it‘s like and I hope that you‘re getting yourself back on top.‘ Angel‘s tone rang with empathy. Peta realised they were the first genuine words of encouragement she had heard since her whole life began unravelling. ‗I guess it has been pretty bad?‘ Angel asked gently. ‗It has,‘ Peta began. ‗Bloody awful, actually, I‘ve gone through a divorce and lost my job. This was the only work on offer, but still people look down on me, as though I‘m some sort of sub class.‘ ‗Society has become horribly self centred, Peta, compassion seems to be a thing of the past.‘ ‗Don‘t I know it, sometimes when I get home you can see tramps scrounging in the bins outside my hotel. Trying to feed themselves with our garbage. It‘s hard getting back on your feet. You don‘t realise how much of the friendship and support that you take for granted disappears when your credit cards are no good.‘ ‗You live in a hotel?‘ Angel asked.

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28 Order Now for Christmas! hazelbrookcellars.com.au ‗Just while I get over this hump, it‘s cheap, filthy actually, what they used to call a Ladies Boarding House, but I do get to enjoy eight different forms of halitosis every morning in our communal bathroom.‘ Suddenly Peta stopped, aware that she was blushing. What had come over her? she thought angrily. Looking at the half finished coffee she realised that she had blown the sale. Damn! Blown it stupidly, through weakness, by letting her shield down. She prepared to make her apologies and leave.

only take three minutes.‘ Angel looked at her calmly, even a little sadly.

‗I know it‘s hard, Peta,‘ he said. ‗But trust me. Just write your phone number and the hours when I can reach you on this pad,‘ he handed her a beautifully bound diary, opened at a blank page. ‗Actually, put the address of the hotel there and I shall have the papers delivered to the Front Desk tomorrow.

While you‘re doing that, please excuse ‗It‘s all right, Peta,‘ Angel said, as though me for one moment.‘ reading her mind. ‗For what it‘s worth, I Angel turned and walked out of the believe all men and women experience kitchen. Peta heard the footsteps slumps that have a profound effect on disappearing to where she imagined the their future. Most cope and are doomed bedrooms were. Looking down at the to a life of mediocrity. Others collapse form she shrugged and accepted that this and are sent spinning into a world of self- was the best deal she was going to get hate and loathing, the men foraging in today. Taking out her pen she wrote in garbage bins, for example. Then there are the diary ‗Angel, call me anytime,‘ and the rare few, so deeply shaken that they placed her mobile phone number beneath are brutal in their outlook. They seize this it. Then she wrote ‗Peta Banshiel, Room moment and rebuild themselves in a way 28, Hudson Hotel, 137 Mary Street‘. She that guarantees their future success. No added ‗Hope to hear from you soon, pre-eminent figure in history arrived at thanks for your kindness and generosity.‘ greatness without first undergoing this With a sudden jolt she realised that she metamorphosis.‘ truly did hope to hear from the man soon, not just for the business, but because she Angel had finished his coffee and placed felt a connection. ‗Stop that,‘ she it by the sink. Slowly he turned around. muttered to herself harshly. ‗This man ‗What will you make of this opportunity, and you have nothing in common.‘ Peta?‘ Peta turned around and stifled a scream.

Peta looked at her own coffee, swirled Angel was standing right behind her. She the last remnants and gulped it down. had not heard a thing. ‗I‘m sorry I‘ve taken up your time, Angel, thanks for the drink, I‘d better be going.‘ She placed her cup on the central table and began to turn toward the hallway. ‗Wait Peta. I was serious about the company having merit. Leave me the form and I‘ll sign up.‘ ‗You will?‘ Peta turned, unable to completely hide the surprise and excitement. ‗Hang on, we can do this right now, if you‘re sure.‘ ‗Just leave the form on the table, I assume that to get your commission you have to process the sale?‘ ‗That‘s right, but we could do this right now,‘ Peta struggled to hide her anxiousness in closing the deal. ‗It will

‗I‘m sorry, Angel, but you scared the life out of me.‘ ‗Please, I should be making the apologies, I really must make more noise, but I can‘t, force of habit, you see.‘ He placed a leather satchel case down near his coffee cup and took a plastic bag from it, which he held, turning it briefly, before replacing it. Peta glimpsed a magnificent baton, about 30 centimetres long, with a golden eagle head at one end. ‗Peta, I see a lot of my younger self in you. I hope that you are one of those few who can attain greatness by overcoming your current hardships. Some people think of me as an eccentric,‘ he said, holding up a hand to quiet the protest. ‗No, please, I know that I am. I want you

to have this.‘ Angel gently passed the case to and fro in his hands as he continued. ‗This is a Field Marshall‘s baton. Not just any Field Marshall, either,‘ he chuckled. ‗This one belonged to Rommell. Have you heard of him?‘ Peta nodded, recalling the name of Hitler‘s desert fox, before a spark of sanity flickered. ‗Angel, no, you‘re offering me this, but no, I couldn‘t, it must be worth a fortune.‘ ‗It is and, fortunately, so am I. Listen to me Peta, carefully. I apologise for rushing, I have had a good life, but it is close to ending. I was recently diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas. It will be very quick and very final. I have a feeling about you, I want you to have this, get out of that hotel and make a new start. If you like, you can consider it as pandering to the good Samaritan in me. Don‘t ask me why, just do it to make an old man happy. Call me in three months and let me know how things are working out for you. I shall need good news in three months, I hope you can give me some.‘ Angel moved toward the doorway again, suddenly looking very tired. ‗I have done very well in this life for myself. It is only now that I realise I have done nothing for anyone else. Take the baton and start again.‘ Peta watched as the older man came back to the table and placed the leather satchel case in front of her. It was happening too quickly, she felt like she was in a dream. ‗Tomorrow I shall send the Green Scene paperwork to you but I hardly think you should concern yourself with that. For now, I have placed a letter of provenance and the deed of ownership for the baton inside the satchel case. I have also included the address of a dealer I do business with. He has been hectoring me about this piece for years. The plastic bag containing the baton and the envelope have been sealed, don‘t tamper with them or the dealer will be annoyed. I am confident you will get more than a fair price for the piece. Now, please go, Peta, and thank you for this opportunity.‘ Peta felt the hand on her shoulder like breeze, barely there at all, but directing her toward the hallway and back to the

door. When it opened Peta noticed that the sun had just set. She stood again at the threshold and looked back at Angel. ‗Do me one more favour, Peta,‘ he said. ‗I like to tick off the boxes, so forgive me, make sure you don‘t do anything silly tonight, have an early evening, and in the morning you will be given the opportunity to start a new phase in your life.‘ Angel beamed at Peta and then quietly shut the door.

Peta walked out of the courtyard and did exactly as she was told. She returned to her squalid room and placed the satchel case on the table near the window. Then she took it back away from the window fearful someone would somehow scale the wall and snatch it. Finally she clutched the bag to her chest and lay down to sleep, eventually drifting off with thoughts of a comfortable penthouse and her own agency. Mixed with these were fantasies of revenge against all who had wronged her, oh yes, she would raise a glass of Bollinger over their graves if she could.

She was woken just before six the next morning by a hammering on the door. ‗Peta Banshiel?‘ a gruff voice demanded. ‗Peta Banshiel, this is the Police, open the door immediately. Do you hear me?‘ Sitting up in bed she put the satchel case aside and began pulling on her dressing gown. ‗I hear you, hang on, I‘m just getting dressed.‘ She had barely finished the words when the door came off its hinges with a splintering crack. Policemen poured into the room. Before she could properly stand Peta had been thrown to the floor where she felt her arms being pinned behind her and then heard the ratchet of cuffs on her wrist. ‗What‘s going on?‘ Peta shouted, outraged. ‗This is a disgrace, what are you doing?‘ Then she looked up at the satchel case. Oh Christ, she thought, don‘t tell me the bastard has claimed I stole it. ‗Peta Banshiel?‘ asked the gruff voice again. ‗Yes.‘

‗I‘m placing you under arrest.‘ ‗Look if it‘s about the satchel bag …‘ ‗Satchel bag? Ms. Banshiel, we‘re talking about murder. You have the right to remain silent …‘ the rest of it trailed off as Peta‘s mind swirled. Murder? What was going on?

Peta heard the gruff voice trailing off toward the stairs. ‗We‘ll find the other stuff she took. My guess is that she pawned them last night.

This girl doesn‘t look smart enough to know a dealer. If the Prosecution could prove that she did, well they‘d just about throw away the key.‘

‗Do you understand your rights, ma‘am?‘ Peta remembered Angel‘s last words. ‗In the gruff voice repeated. the morning you will be given the ‗No I don‘t understand any of it. Murder? opportunity to start a new phase in your life.‘ She remembered the smile of the Of who?‘ nondescript man and, as part of her brain ‗For the murder of Mr Angelo Peguse, began registering the end of life as she Angel to his friends.‘ There was knew it, another part was sure it heard something about the way he said quiet, mocking laughter. It was equally ‗friends‘. sure the envelope in the satchel case ‗But I didn‘t kill anyone, I met a man at a would contain the name of a dealer.

Spanish house, his name was Angel, sure *** but ...‘ On board an Air France flight a tall, ‗The man you refer to, Mr Peguse, was a angular man in Business Class sipped very well to do widower. I think you cognac. The Cote D‘Azur was lovely at know that. His house was burgled last this time of year, the man thought. night, we found him bludgeoned to death What‘s more, his contacts would at the scene after we received an appreciate the several exquisite pieces anonymous tip off.‘ that he had packed carefully into his ‗No!‘ Peta gasped, turning ashen. ‗There luggage. Pieces that, if found by a curious customs officer, could easily pass for was a man there. We had coffee.‘ gifts. He smiled to himself. You just had ‗A single coffee cup was found, it‘s being to know what to take, and never get checked now for prints,‘ he turned and greedy. Still, it was a shame poor old called to one of the men in the room. ‗Get Angelo had come home when he was her shoes, we‘ll see if they match the meant to be at his Bridge Club. footmarks in the hallway.‘ He looked back at Peta coldly. ‗He was a man who He picked up a newspaper next to him and saw Peta‘s face on the front page. enjoyed the occasional company of women who came from the wrong end of Prosecution was asking for a life town. Apparently these women were well sentence. Dreadful shame, the man compensated. Just wasn‘t enough for you, thought, smiling. Still, it appeared that the girl‘s ex husband, an aspiring was it?‘ He spat the last words at Peta barrister, was taking her case pro bono. before turning away. The officer was nearly out the door when a voice stopped He was sure that a good defence would get the girl off, and who knew what him. One of the young policemen was would happen after that? Perhaps the holding the plastic bag with the baton. couple would reconcile. He shrugged and ‗Look at this!‘ he said. turned to the social pages, which were already covering the party season in ‗Put it down you fool, that‘s evidence,‘ Cannes breathlessly. There were rich ordered the gruff voice. ‗Get these morons out of here, Sergeant, and seal the pickings to be had, green pastures indeed. room.‘ m As the young policeman placed the baton next to the satchel case Peta looked at the eagle‘s head and noticed the dark stains around the beak and the eyes. She saw hair sticking to the stains.

Tony Dwyer Springwood

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Second Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2010

The Liberation of Ted Farmer Charlie was sitting on the Royal‘s verandah With his old mates, Pete and Bill When they saw Ted Farmer‘s trusty ute Come chugging over the hill.

He escorted her over to the ute Dropping her bags into the rear.

He pointed out the three watchers – Charlie, Bill and Pete And the girl waved gaily and blew a kiss As she climbed into the ute‘s front seat.

‗Well stone the flamin‘ crows,‘ said Charlie ‗That‘s an unfamiliar sight His missus must have let him out, and I bet not without a fight.‘

Lifting their glasses of amber The three wondered who she could be They all came up with suggestions But no answer could they see.

Ted‘s wife was notoriously bossy And ruled Ted with an iron hand To see him in town in the middle of the day Meant he‘d finally made a stand.

As the ute drove away they returned To the world‘s problems and the drought They forgot all about Ted and his guest And the fact he‘d driven north, not south.

Just as the weekly bus pulled in The ute came to a shuddering stop Out of the bus stepped a beautiful girl You could almost hear the jaws drop.

Five days went past and the three old mates Were having their daily ‗good oil‘ When they saw the town‘s only police car Pull into the front of the Royal.

They watched as Ted stepped forward And whispered in the stranger‘s ear

Paris Match

The passenger door opened and a woman appeared And they recognised Ted Farmer‘s wife She seemed a shadow of her former self As her face registered worry and strife.

Dan Roberts, the cop approached the three And asked if they‘d seen Ted Farmer ‗Not for a coupla days,‘ they said Then mentioned the beautiful charmer. ‗Just as I feared,‘ Ted‘s wife cried out ‗It‘s that bloody internet – He said he was looking for a new house dog But picked a different kind of pet!‘ As the months went by there was no word Of Ted – he‘d simply disappeared The three old mates called it ―the great escape‖ Drank their beers and quietly cheered. m

First Prize, Blue Mountains Summer 2010

In a narrow street in the 7th arrondissement of Paris; an unremarkable, yet attractive residential area, is the tiny shopfront of Madame Chauval – the seamstress. It is usefully placed; along the road from the launderette and close to several pensions and small hotels. It was there that Sandrine took herself on a Saturday afternoon in July for her fitting.

a trust between them that resulted in a mutual profit. Sandrine always looked stylish and Madame did well out of this.

Robyn Nance Valley Heights

Samantha Miller Faulconbridge

An accomplished coquette from an early age, Sandrine drank in the admiration of others quite naturally. It had always been so. She was a little too tall, her teeth a bit The two women were very different in crooked, but her bottom and breasts were looks and age. Madame was a woman of round and high. Her eyes were dark and a certain age, though very well kept by a turned up. Her hair was curly and retired politician who had purchased the untamed and her mouth was fashionably shop and its flat for her some twenty large. Why should men not pursue her? years ago. She was still attractive, Madame had said as much since pinning classically stylish and always impeccably her first party dress.

Sandrine knew that the dress she would groomed. Her hair remained nut brown wear at the Bastille Day dinner would be due to the ministrations of Claude in the *** a coup de grace. She knew that all the rue de Charles. Her eyes sparkled as From a long way across the world a men would fall at her feet. This dress much as her few modest items of jewelry couple came to visit Paris. They stayed in would levitate her to the heights of a and the LCD of her till, which she could one of the lovely little hotels; this one goddess. After all what woman in Paris beat to the calculation of moneys owed. just around the corner from Madame‘s doesn‘t feel this way when being fitted She was small and birdlike and although little shop. for a new dress? her real name was Mignon, she always referred to herself as Madame.

Jo and her husband Robert were enjoying Madame Chauval welcomed Sandrine.

Paris. It was so romantic, it was They knew each other well and had done Sandrine was young and fresh, living in ridiculous. Was this because everyone business on several occasions. There was the confidence of her own attractiveness. said it was so, or was this why everyone

said it was so? *** They walked the streets holding hands.

Madame turned her attention to the task Drank café in the brassières. Took the lift of dealing with the foreign tourists. At and walked up the Eiffel Tower. The least they bothered to try to speak French. view from above was captivating.

The woman seemed more skilled in this Napoleon had arranged the building of department, though she displayed more much of central Paris in a neat star shape. enthusiasm than skill. The man was Jo and Robert laughed that Napoleon had nodding a lot and every now and then he carried off in Paris what Burley Griffin would glance away and then down as if had rendered so sterile in Canberra. his lack of language embarrassed him.

They retired to their room often to make love and sleep during the day, a usually It appeared that the man required a seam unheard of luxury for a professional to be sewn in his pants. This would be no couple. problem. He could leave them with her and could pick them up in five days.

Jo and Robert wanted to visit the Moulin Rouge. This was something that was so *** essentially French to them, that despite Entering the cubicle with Madame‘s back the fact they would not normally visit a to her, Sandrine pulled the dancing show, they really wanted to see curtain almost closed. Through this one. The draw of the cancan lured the mirror in the cubicle she them and they found themselves signed could feel the man‘s eyes on her. up for a dinner and show package They flicked up and away again. through one of the tourist agencies recommended by the brochures found at Sandrine began to remove the Madame Bricolage‘s front desk at the dress. She moved very slowly hotel de Motte Picquot. and very carefully, so as not to disturb the marks that indicated This trip was some days away, but in the desired length of the order to prepare they visited the garment. She also moved with a launderette around the corner to wash great deal of enjoyment, sensing some clothes and ensure they were the man‘s eyes, imagining his suitably garbed for their night out. It was breath on her neck, his hand on here that Robert discovered the rip in the her thigh. seam of his good pants. They must be fixed. He had no others suitable. *** Shouldn‘t be a problem, as there must be Five days appeared to be a a repair shop nearby. problem for the couple. They were going to a good restaurant *** on Tuesday. The woman was Sandrine was standing in her dress before earnest and polite, but her the full-length mirror in the tiny shop.

French was so bad and her Madame knelt behind her on a small clothes unattractive. Madame cushion, lifting the hem of the dress here would not understand and there. The door opened and a couple immediately. walked in. *** It was immediately obvious that the Sandrine stood in her lingerie and fussed couple were not Parisians. Their clothes over the dress. She slid her eyes over to were more suited to a hiking picnic than a the mirror to ensure her audience was still walk in the city of love. They were not entranced. He was controlled. He was even French. Sandrine‘s mind ticked off subtle, and though she liked the look of her list, certainly not American, not him, he could have been anyone. This German, not English….? was about Sandrine.

Madame continued to raise and lower Sandrine‘s hem until the level was satisfactory to both women. Then Madame stood up gracefully and walked behind the counter. ―Tres belle, le robe,‖ commented Jo in very bad French. Sandrine smiled and stretched herself. She walked behind the counter and entered a cubicle to the left.

She bent down to pick up her handbag, showing round cheeks of her bottom and the place where her panties creased over between her fat pussy lips. The man looked quickly at Madame and then at her again.

Taking her lipstick out of her bag, Sandrine ran the deep red over her lips slowly and looked the man in the eye.

Carefully, she winked. Then she took her dress from a hanger in the cubicle, slid it over her arms and buttoned up the front. *** As Sandrine emerged from the cubicle, the man and his wife were leaving the shop. They had a receipt from Madame for the pants, which they could pick up on Tuesday afternoon. *** In the street, Robert walked quickly. As they arrived back at their room, Robert pressed himself against Jo. ‗Oh my God!‘ He exclaimed. ‗That woman was teasing me!‘ ‗What woman?‘ asked Jo.

As her husband finished his story, Jo laughed. It was the laugh of a woman loved; a woman who knew her husband.

He was titillated. He was flattered. Yet, he loved his wife. He began to make love to her and it was good. ‗Perhaps I should let you pick up your pants by yourself,‘ Jo teased. *** Back at the tiny shop, Madame Chauval turned to Sandrine. ‗He will be back for more, that one.‘ she said. m Samantha Miller Faulconbridge

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Elizabeth Diehl Wentworth Falls

Everything Seems to be Broken Third Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2010 Hello Jack you will be pleased to know that I am alive and well of body and almost sound of mind or will you? I tried to send a message to you but they would not allow me to send anything; so I sit and write this in the hope one day you will read it. I don‘t‘ think anyone ever understood me; but you have always understood me; or I thought you did; I just want you and the others to know who I really am. Not the broken thing you last saw.

raging all around and in me and I had no idea where to shelter and how to stop it. I felt desperate and I felt like I was losing control.

The word ‗control‘ keeps coming up and I get all nervous when I think of it; such a powerful word; such a small word; a word that can cause so much pain.

I lay awake and wonder will I ever get a chance to tell you how I feel; and to be able to touch you and to feel your arms around me now that would be perfect.

I am longing for you to come and take me You cringed and pulled away from me as home; to put your arms around me and they took me; and I saw the tears of terror tell me it‘s all ok and we will be ok. When I am in your arms I feel like I have died and gone to heaven.

There is something special about our relationship even if it has been like a roller coaster; and broken for the moment. You taking me home is not going to happen anytime soon, I know that and I know how badly I hurt you and the children. They tell me I will have to remain here for sometime to finish off my healing process. I have been living in a delusional world; acting a little crazy at times and I seemed to be insane to most people.

Everything around me was shattered and streaming down your face. I gave you broken; or is that another of my illusions? my heart and you turned out to be a Sometimes I hear voices inside my head Judas. Are you a Judas or did you do the and I wonder if it‘s spirit talking to me or right thing? the craziness inside of myself.

As they took me away I screamed out At the toss of a coin I would explode and silently for you to forgive me to know seem a little crazy to anyone listening. I that it was not me; that I would never would lose control and not be able to intentionally hurt you. You walked away regain it for a very long time. I attacked from me, turned your back and as they anyone within arms length or my tongue put me in the van I knew then with a lashed out and cut deeply into people‘s certainty that I had destroyed yet another souls; destroying innocence; friendships relationship and it was broken; shattered and relationships; like the force of the and lost like myself. cyclone I destroyed whatever was in my Someone always gets hurt and someone path. Every time I think of you I have to always loses. Is there ever a winner in stop and try hard to remember to breathe; love and war? Was our relationship love I miss you so much. There was a storm

or war? I suspect a little of both. My heart aches and my soul cries out for you to understand the real me. The rage and anger inside of me came from deep within me; it was not of my making.

We met when we were young and feel deeply in love but I always kept something physically and emotionally from you. I tried to overcome it and I tried to love fully but there was always something inside of me that raged and still does at the injustice of it all. I am so much better now but they tell me I still have a way to go before I am completely healed and allowed to go home to you; do you still want me, you never come to visit me, where are you? Did I break you; are you broken like me?

I was born the second child of four and like any small child I had dreams and hopes for my future.

Laughter and tears were the norm in our house and there was love, lots of love.

My parents were loving and wonderful people; did they know? Did anyone know my dirty secret? Was it written on my forehead for all to see? As an adult I did lots of intense work on myself to forgive and forget, but if I am to be honest with you and myself I did not dig deep enough. I held back for fear of losing my mind; how ironic is that?

I blamed my moods on PMS and then on menopause but deep down I knew it was that ‗secret‘ I kept to myself causing it.

Our children suffered for it, and this haunts me every day of my life. I lay a wake thinking of them and how I almost destroyed their lives with my ‗anger‘ and my ‗secret‘. Was it wrong of me to keep it to myself, should I have told you before we married and the children long before I

did?

me; the abused to feel anger; to lose control and strike out at the loved ones around us. Maybe I went too far; is that why you let them come and take me away or was it because I lost my mind and tried to take my life? My brother took my innocence all those years ago he should have killed me then and there; it would have saved all this pain and anguish.

Then one day I confessed my dirty ‗secret‘ and you and I cried together; holding each other and you whispered into my ear that it did not matter to you; that you would always be here for me.

We decided not to tell the children; too much information for ones so young.

Were we right; has it helped or hurt them keeping secrets only hurts people; or does I drank to forget; to dull the pain so I did it? not have to think; but it never helped it My childhood was like most; school and just got worse. It got so bad that I found homework with visits to grand parents it hard to get out of bed and to function. and church on Sundays. In summer we The black dog days grew worse and the sang all the way to the beach in our anger raged inside of me, spilling out and Holden with the tailgate up and we ate creating chaos all around me.

I water melon sitting on the hot sand. I conquered my drinking habit; so those was a skinny little kid with thin brown days are over but now I have to face hair; who loved to climb trees and talk to reality sober; not such a good thing. I the fairies; and make mud pies; ride my have been seeking; searching and trying bike and play hopscotch with my friends to find myself in all this mess for years. I and siblings. We played hide and seek in know underneath all of this I am a good the bush land surrounding the school. loving person. I try to embrace life and We dipped the plaits of the girls in front face my fears but the anger gets in the of us in the ink wells and we drank warm way. I have been so tired of being milk in bottles. We played cricket and depressed and I wonder why I am like used hula hoops when we could get one, this? Then I discovered that depression is they were in big demand. If we were ‗anger‘ turned inwards and it became lucky we would be brought an ice cream clear to me what I had to do. when we went to the movies.

Does my brother ever stop to think about Dad grew vegetables in our back garden and mum baked apple and blackberry pies. We would go down into the bush and pick the blackberries, always coming home with the stain of berries on our mouths; sometimes eating more than we brought home. Nana dropped in often and with her visits came laughter and love; she was such a wonderful loving giving woman. Mum‘s very much like her and I am like them in many ways.

The only thing is they did not have the anger inside them that I have.

Life was simple and happy until the day my innocence was taken from me; the day of terror and disbelief. You know all this because we have talked about my childhood many times, but we never really talked about my loss of control or my bouts of temper or the depression and anger; my black dog days and the excessive drinking. I guess it was easier to sweep it all under the carpet and pretend it was all ok.

They tell me it is normal for woman like

how he ruined my life, how dirty he has made me feel? How many others has he devastated and how many lives has he ruined? Nobody would listen to me and when they did they would say; I was imagining it, I was telling lies and I was naughty girl and it was probably my fault for encouraging him. How can a small child encourage something like that, how would I have know about such things? I grew up shy and afraid of boys; I only ever felt comfortable around my family; but never completely comfortable around my brother and still don‘t. Over the years other boys and men tried to use my body; the anger raged and burned inside of me but I fought back and I have survived, just.

Life with you has been mostly good and we have wonderful grown children; but I have not been fair to you. I have held back part of myself and never really let you love me like you should. There have been many times when I have raged and ranted at you and I saw the pain in your

eyes and the children‘s eyes. Once I unleashed the anger I could not stop and we all suffered for it.

Do you remember how we met? We were on a blind date; you walked into the room and crossed the dance floor and stood beside me. The only words you said were ―Hello Sue‖ and ―Can I hold your hand‖. You just stood there staring at me and that is how we remained for most of the night. Both of us were shy and had no idea how to make the first move. I remember thinking I can not go out with him again; he‘s boring but when you rang the following week I weakened and the rest is history.

I was a child growing into a woman and you a young boy trying to become a man.

We knew nothing of love and relationships; I thought that love came with abuse; not that you physically abused me. I have tried really hard not to let the children see this other side of me; the dirty side. I wanted them to grow up in a loving family with their innocence in tact. Did I do a good job, who will judge me?

Life here is ok; they let you have free time to wander in the gardens; even if it is surrounded by a huge wall. I feel comfortable with the wall I have live behind one most of my life. This time of the year is nice, the daffodils are out and the air is crisp just the way I like it.

Remember how much I loved it when the autumn came and trees changed colour and then after a long cold winter came spring with the flourish of new buds on the trees. Only as a child did I ever love the summer, I worshipped the sun and would lay out in it all day if I could. I have a room to myself here whereas the others are in a dormitory with at least 8 people. I am not sure why I get to have a room to myself; did you arrange it? The games room is noisy and has a lot of crazy people in it; so I try to avoid it but they want let me; and like the group sessions that I dislike I have to attend.

They are confronting and the other people are always wanting to know what I am here for and why did I try to finish off what they see as a perfect life? I have no interest in telling complete strangers my inner most thoughts; I‘m not comfortable with that. It is quite amazing

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how other people see your life; I guess it is different looking in from outside. I wonder how the children perceived our life; how did you see it; was there always a black cloud hanging over our relationship for you to?

stay on the paper. It‘s crowded and noisy here but I feel so alone and lonely. I have felt this way most of my life; actually all of my life. I can be in the midst of a huge crowd and still feel alone, why is that?

Are you lonely?

Our children seem well adjusted adults, but are they really, what is going on in their minds? The counselor says I am doing really well, would they say that if they read my private diary that I hide in the walled in garden. I have searched for years why some people do what they do to others, and still the answer eludes me; do you have the answer?

I‘ve never been one for having loads of friends like my sister; I prefer just to have a couple of close friends. She surrounds herself with people all the time and can not bear to be alone. I on the other hand do not mind being alone, but then when I feel the need for company I have no one to call up. It‘s like a catch twenty two thing isn‘t it? We always want what we

They search every ones bags and take away the mobile phones when we come in here. Most of the others have phone privileges; apparently you told them you did not want me to phone you anymore; why? I feel broken and isolated; where are you? They make us sit in on a meditation class and this makes me uncomfortable. For a very long time I have been trying to work out who I am; maybe I need to become a monk; the Buddhist are such peaceful people. The solitary life would suit me to a degree; I love people but they can be so cruel, what is happening to this world? Why are people so cruel?

When they give me my sleeping pill at night I pretend to swallow it, I have gotten very good at putting it up on the roof of my mouth and then when I am completely happy they are not watching me I put it up my vagina till the morning and then I flush it. I lay awake and dream of you and our love making and the happy times we shared. The night is the only time that is completely mine, it is the time when I reflect on my life and how I got here. It‘s the time when the angels come to visit me and I am not so alone; I like that.

Do you miss me at all or have you replaced me with another lover? I miss you more than I will ever be able to say on paper. I‘d like to get the chance to show you how much I miss you and love you, but you never come. It would be nice to have something else in my vagina other than a pill; is that too rude for you; should I say these things to you? Never mind I‘ve written it now so it will have to

Do you miss me at all or have you replaced me with another lover? do not have. Do you still want me? We were made for loving each other; I could never get enough of you and you me. Oh Jack smile; I can see you frowning that frown of yours; lighten up Jack.

I long to walk by the seashore and collect shells and then wonder what I am going to do with them. I have a compulsion to collect every brochure I find and you would always laugh at me for taking them home. Have you cleaned out all the draws I stored them in and thrown it all out or is it still waiting for me? I am a woman that likes a tidy house, but don‘t look in my draws and cupboards they are a mess. Does this tell you I am orderly on the outside and a mess on the inside; I think it does. I wonder what the head shrink would make of this one if I told them; I tell them very little. I hate talking about my inner most thoughts, it hurts oh how it hurts and I feel broken and out of control when they make me talk in the group. Even writing this to you hurts and causes me pain.

SENIORS WELCOME to them and be more willing to share my inner most thoughts I will remain here.

It‘s not such a bad place to be. I remember when I told my mother that there have been times when I would like to lose my mind and not have to think; and then I got scared the God‘s would hear me and take my mind away; so I stopped saying it, but I guess they decided that I had said it enough and they stepped in and took it that day. For who in their right mind would take their own life? Did you not see the danger signs; did you not hear me screaming out to you for help? Were you so blind to me that you did not see the torture I was in and how badly I needed help? Have you ever stopped to look at our relationship and see how toxic it was? I would often say to you that you were like ―a dead man walking‖, because you appeared to not feel. Were you willing to live with me under any circumstances?

Our love became a very different kind of love; we went from that intense passion to taking each other for granted; not seeing the real person. Most couples go through this and some come out the other side more in love or they decide it is all too hard and they go their own ways. I took this decision out of your hands; I could see you were struggling to hang in there. It‘s not why I did what I did that day; and it‘s not your fault, please do not blame yourself for that one. You can take the blame for some of our broken relationship, but not all of it; I was there too.

Love can be a painful experience and tear you apart; or it can complete you. I am glad to have experienced ours; there have been so many beautiful times and on the other hand so many painful times. We have laughed loved and grown together over the years and seen the children grow into beautiful adults. Our son has your quiet spirit and my impulsive behaviour, our daughter is the spit out of my mouth and also has my impulsive behaviour but has many of your family‘s genes; some good and some not so good. I am a loving giving woman and I have always tried to be a good wife and mother I am afraid I might have failed at both of these, please forgive me for that.

I miss my quilting, but I am not allowed to have scissors and needles, they think I am still a danger to myself. They constantly ask me what put me over the edge that day and I never say, to this day I have not told anyone the reason why.

Maybe if you come to visit me I will tell you, but you never come. They tell me until I am willing to open completely up They tell me I have a lot of work to do on

myself and until I am willing to share more of myself with them I will remain here a broken spirit. Did I tell you this already; sometimes I get mixed up and I forget where I am and when reality comes back I want to scream and scream; but if I do they stick sharp needles in me and they lock me up till I calm down. I feel tormented each and every day here because you do not come. I feel like a caged animal yet I will not and can not tell them what they ask of me. I suppose is not too bad here, there is the garden to walk in and there are daffodils to pick.

You don‘t come; where are you? I keep hoping you will come to one of our family group sessions, but you do not come.

You stay away and I stay here locked in my mind and behind the garden walls.

Dreams are all I have; no one can take them away from me; not even my brother. Have you moved on; are you seeing someone else, is she completing you better than I could; is this why you stay away? I feel tormented when I think of you with someone else yet I know you need to move on and mend yourself.

Don‘t stay broken like me my love. The sun is shinning and I am allowed to go out into the garden this afternoon; but not till the counselor says it is ok. They tell us when to eat and when we can go to the toilet; they govern our lives and they rule with an iron fist; yet they are kind and they care. Do you care; where are you my love?

house and said there was something you wanted to tell me, what is it? Even in the fog I was in I can remember the shocked look on your face when you found me taking a bath in blood red suds. I laugh to myself when I think about how comical I must have looked, all dressed in my best in the bath with cut wrists.

Did I steal your thunder; did I take from you the glory of what was so important that you had to come home early?

Bugger you! Were you going to tell me you had; had enough and were leaving me or were you finally going to talk to me about our toxic broken marriage and tell me it will be alright? It‘s not alright is it; you never come here; is it because I disgust you that much or are you such a mouse of a man you can not face me and the truth of who I am? I am woman who loves you and I am here alone in all this madness I am here screaming silently out for help.

and I tell them to mind their own bloody business and I usually scream at them and that is when I get one of those needles and go to sleep for awhile, did I tell you it is nice here?

The counselor said I was progressing nicely, what the ‗fuck‘ does that mean?

Progressing nicely! Sounds like a barn dance to me; he talks so much shit. Did I tell you that it‘s nice here; great garden.

They let us walk amongst the daffodils and sometimes we are allowed to pick them; hmm it is nice here. I wanted to go and get some material to make a quilt for my bed but they said the shops are closed on Sunday; but I knew it was Monday.

I think they are the mad ones; not me.

Everyone knows Monday comes after Saturday. Hmm they said that I could go another day; but then they said I was not ready to go out, it just goes to show you; who the crazy one is. When you come in next time please bring my sewing and some blue material. Oh and also when you come; please bring my brother I have not seen him for awhile; we can all sit down and have a nice cup of tea together.

I hear the visitors bell ringing and the ever hopeful foot steps running down the hall to see if they have a visitor; stupid people; don‘t they know no one comes. I pray that today is the day you will bring the children to see me.

I am a victim and I do not belong here, I know this with all my heart but I will not and can not tell why I tried to end my life. Why is it so important for them to know? Crazy people walk around here all day and some even have those straight jackets on and rock back and forwards moaning so loudly it almost deafens you.

Is this to be my life forever more, a crazy lonely woman locked behind a garden wall screaming out for help and not getting any?

Good night my love; sweet dreams and please give my brother my love. Yours Remember when I told you about my forever more Mary the mother of your brother and you said I did not ever have Sometimes I think of that day, the day to see him ever again; well I am so children xx m you let them take me away and I wish pleased I do not have to see him; it just Elizabeth Diehl you had not come home so early. You disturbs me too much. The counselors Wentworth Falls called out to me s you came into the are always asking me to talk about him

Ticket

Second Prize, Blue Mountains Autumn 2011

When I was young my father would, sometimes on a weekend for a few hours, take me to his place of work, and while he was busy doing what adults would do in their office I would be left to wander freely in the big International Terminal.

Life was so much more simpler then and the ever present eye of fear was something yet to come in a future time.

All the busyness, the comings and goings of travelers to destinations yet unknown

to me instilled a sense of longing for far off places in my mind. Over time I would get to know most of the people working there, and I remember one man in particular, who was almost like a fixture at this Airport. There was something about him, some might say ‗other worldly‘ which drew me to him and somehow he became, second only to my father, the most important influence in my life. Sometimes we would sit and

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Aristidis Metaxas Katoomba

talk, and sometimes we would just sit.

His name was Mr. Jones, and this is his story: Mr. Jones was a well known figure at this gateway of departures and arrivals; he had been around the place for, some say, nearly 20 years or more. Nobody really knew who he was, where he came from or much about his life, he was just known as Mr. J, and as far as everyone was

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concerned, part of the place. It seemed that he had nowhere else to go to, and had been living at the Airport as if it were his home. All the people working there got to know him really well, nobody had the heart to throw him out, kindhearted people gave him free coffee and often a hot meal, there was no one who was unkind to Mr. J as he ambled daily around the terminal. He became like a good luck charm to the place.

really knew, as they say ‗a lot‘ about the places. Occasionally it would happen that a new security guard or official would, not knowing Mr. J that well, become overeager and try to move him from the terminal, seeing him more of a nuisance than anything else and a bother to the many passengers, but other staff would soon reassure them that Mr. J was just who he was and harmless. And so days and years passed.

Often what he liked to do mostly was to pretend that he was about to depart on a overseas trip, or had just arrived, carrying a battered old brown suitcase held together with a leather strap, a suitcase not seen these days what with all the shiny new fangled fancy trolleys and slick looking cases Mr. J and his suitcase looked like a real curiosity from times past. But it suited him, like himself it was old, worn, nearly falling apart, had seen better days, had seen much and carried many things. Now, it just contained a comb, a toothbrush, and old photograph of his wife long gone and picture of his children, as well as an old faded Bible.

It was one of those warm late autumn afternoons, when the light was really golden and shining fully into the terminal, giving the place a warm glow and softening the harshness of chrome and glass efficiency. The old man was resting on one of the seats in the departure area, feeling a little tired that day and not quite himself. He sat there wondering what his life had been all about, and he was sunk deeply in his memories and thoughts when suddenly a voice on the Address system made an

Somehow for reasons still unknown to this day Mr. J was able to walk freely around the terminal, walking past the police, immigration, customs and security checks, but nobody ever tried to stop him or seemed to mind. Sometimes, when the place wasn‘t too busy with passengers he would even hand in his suitcase at the check counter, and then whoever was on duty would always with a smile put it on the conveyer belt, where it would disappear and somehow, minutes later would reappear at the arrival carousel.

Mr. J would then walk through the gates and on the way tell other travelers nearby that he was going to all kinds of exotic places, Tahiti, the Caribbean, America, Hawaii or Europe. Or he would get his case from the carousel and tell how he just arrived from overseas and chat about the wonderful places he had been to and all the sights he had seen. It was even said that Mr. J at one time long ago was a professor of Art and History and so he

good man who never spoke a harsh word to anyone. He was a strikingly tall, over 6ft 5, it was said that his ancestors in a different place and time had been Tribal Chiefs in Africa. Mr. Dekker smiled and said: ‗Hey there Mr. Jones, I think that important announcement may just be for you, why not go and see what it‘s all about. Can‘t do any harm‘. He helped him on his feet and watched him as he walked towards the service desk in the distance.

Mr. Jones arrived at the desk and the woman behind the counter, although she was unfamiliar to him and had never ever seen her at the Airport in all the years he had been there, smiled as she saw him as if she were greeting an old familiar friend and said: ‗Mr. Jones, how good to see you, look what I have for you, someone handed this to me just a moment ago, it is a Ticket and Boarding Pass for you.‘

‗For me?‘, he asked in surprise, ‗But how, who, who on earth would…‘…… he took the ticket, it was a extraordinary color, golden like with a shimmer that made it hard to focus on the writing, nevertheless he tried to read the ticket, Departure Gate: 44, Flight no: 44. Passenger: Mr. Jones.

Seat: First Class. But there was no destination. ‗Surely this must be a mistake‘ said Mr. J, ‗This can‘t be for me‘. The woman smiled again and said: ‗A lady came and handed it to unexpected announcement: ‗Attention me insisting that it must be given to you please, Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones, would you and no one else. Please hurry or you may kindly come to the Customer Courtesy miss your flight. ‗Bon Voyage, Mr. Desk.‘ He heard the voice and the name but was sure that it wasn‘t for him, after Jones!‘ all who would want to see or talk to him, Something odd happened to the air as Mr. he wasn‘t important.

Jones looked at the ticket again, it was like the air was bending, shifting, like on But again, this time with more urgency those hot lazy summer days when you get the voice announced: ‗Your Attention a heat haze and things go out of focus. He please, Mr. Jones, calling Mr. Jones, looked around at the people milling about please come to the Customer Courtesy him in the airport, they all had faces all Desk urgently.‘ He thought who could right but he couldn‘t make out any of that be, funny that someone here would them clearly. ‗My eyesight must be have the same name as him, but then going‘ he thought as he looked at the again Jones was a common name so it departure board which was usually full of wasn‘t that unusual. Then he heard all kind of announcements of departing someone else call his name and as he flights but to his surprise the only looked up he could see Mr. Dekker departure on the Board was Flight 44, walking towards him, he was one of the boarding now at Gate 44. He held on long time airport administrators who had tightly to his old battered suitcase and known him for many years, he was a walked as quickly as he could through the

Departure gates, handing his ticket to the Ben, the control tower operator was an indicating the position of flight 44 also attendant who put it though the Check in old hand at traffic control, he could faded without a trace. He tried re-tracking and wished him a pleasant trip. Nobody almost do his job in his sleep, not that he it over a longer area but could not find asked for his passport or identity, nobody did, but this afternoon on his shift he was the plane anywhere. He reported the checked his suitcase, it was all happening startled out of his routine when, after incident in his log, and when next he so quickly and in slow motion. Mr. J now turning away from his screens for a looked at his screen it was once again walked even faster, in the distance he saw second to grab a pen and turning his filled with planes requesting takeoff and Gate 44 and he hurried towards it afraid attention back to his computers he landing. that he may miss his flight or It was one of the cleaners that perchance he would after It was one of those warm late autumn who found Mr. Jones early all wake up and find that this next morning; he thought he afternoons, when the light was really was just a dream.. was just sleeping on the golden and shining fully into the bench in the departure lounge Mr. Dekker was watching his old friend from a distance 43. His old suitcase terminal, giving the place a warm glow atwasGate feeling that something was not there right next to him right, he couldn‘t put his finger and softening the harshness of chrome and his body was covered on it exactly but he sensed that with a beautiful dark blue and glass efficiency.

Mr. J was acting rather peculiar blanket, with a fine golden today, this was not his usual border and a 44 beneath noticed that all traffic had suddenly imaginary journey, and when he even wings embroidered in the center, his head cleared the sky, not a single plane was passed an offer of a coffee from a nearby was resting on a small pillow of the same requesting to land and the only departing worker, Dekker felt that this was color and monogram. After shaking him flight was a Flight 44. Checking and extremely odd, the old man never ever for a while he realized that Mr. J had double checking the systems and refused a tempting offer like this. A passed away. Someone called a doctor, instruments and drawing the attention of momentary shiver ran up his spine and as and Mr. J was declared dead, died his colleagues and shift supervisor to the he turned away he thought: ‗something sometime during the night around strange occurrence didn‘t make things out of the ordinary is about to happen‘ midnight. The undertaker came, they put any clearer, they too had the same result but immediately brushed it aside, the frail frame into a body bag, zipped it as Ben‘s. Although he found the situation up and to the people who didn‘t know Airports were no place for superstition. unusual to say the least, and after his him he was just some old homeless man Supervisor gave the OK to proceed, he Mr. J had finally reached Gate 44, without relatives or next of kin who had running along the gangway and entering found not further reason to delay the died of old age. the plane. Stepping through the doorway flights departure so he said:‗Flight 44 all he heard a sound like electric static in the clear for takeoff‘ and entered the Mr. Dekker had been one of the first air, a hissing sound and something coordinates into the system. people to arrive after Mr. J‘s body was closing behind him but he was too discovered, and even as he hurried there In his time as a traffic controller he had astounded at what he saw before his eyes. he sensed that his friend had gone As he seen many planes but what he saw taxiing Something took him right back to his put the old mans hands together as if in childhood, he had never ever final prayer he saw a ticket in been on a plane in his life his right hand. It took some before, all the soft lights, the doing to free the piece of beautiful shining interior, paper from his tight grip; the there was a softness warmth old man had really grabbed it and gentleness in that space so hard even in his final that made him feel so filled moments as if he had been with happiness and joy that he afraid to let it go. He looked almost cried out loud. He sank at the piece of paper again for back into the comfortable seat a long time. It was a and closed his eyes. Someone Boarding Pass alright, no brought him a cushion and doubt about it, although the gently covered his body with a paper had a strange feel to it. blanket. Kindness thought Mr. Yes, it was all there, it all Jones, what would our lives be checked out, it was a valid without loving kindness. He ticket - Flight: 44, Departure still had no idea as to where he was going Gate: 44, Passenger: Mr. Jones. down the runway took his breath away. A but somehow it no longer mattered. All huge aircraft, bigger than he had ever Picking up the blue blanket and pillow he could feel was a tremendous sense of seen, golden and shimmering in the with the golden wings he slowly walked love enveloping him and he felt that he afternoon sun, with no other marking or back to his office, ran the Boarding Pass had, after all these years, come home. identifications except a big 44 beneath through the Computer, already knowing Soon after he was seated the door closed, golden wings painted on its fuselage, but what the answer would be - sure enough, and as he opened his eyes again to his oddly enough with no sound coming it all cleared, Mr. Jones had checked in astonishment he saw that he was the only from the planes seven engines as it for the flight that afternoon departing at passenger on the big jetliner. He could steadily lifted its mighty bulk and the correct time at that Gate. Dekker went hear the voice of the captain through the disappeared into the autumn sky. To through the air traffic control logs and speakers saying quietly: ‗Flight 44 Ben‘s amazement, the blip on the screen there was no doubt that the flight had requesting clearance for takeoff‘.

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departed at precisely the time specified, although nobody seemed to be able to come up with an answer as to where the flight came from, just who owned the airline or where its destiny was, nor was there any record of the tickets origin.

Even though he scanned through the CCTV footages a dozen times hoping to find some concrete evidence, he could not even see anyone behind the Customer Courtesy Desk at the very moment when Mr. Jones was standing there receiving his ticket, just a unearthly blue haze for a second or two. To make things even worse Departure gate 44 didn‘t exist either, the last gate at the Airport was 43, the place where they had found the body of Mr. J. He sat behind his desk all day and half

the night as if in a trance with his mind was spinning as he was trying to make sense of it all, occasionally touching the blue pillow on his desk as if to reassure himself that what he was seeing was actually real, looking at the ticket and the evidence, the computer and Control Tower logs presented. He talked with Ben and his colleagues for hours, and all were as perplexed as he was. For sure ‗something‘ had happened that afternoon but what was it exactly, all the numbers and records were there but what did they represent? How was he going to explain any of this to anybody, he couldn‘t even explain this to himself.

When night fell and the stars were coming out he tried to picture in his mind what his ancestors would have had to say,

most likely nothing at all, in fact they would have merely smiled and knowingly nodded their heads. For them it would have been nothing out of the ordinary, a rite of passage to the other side, you don‘t ask questions about things like that; it would be considered, well, rude.

It was nearly midnight when he got up from his chair and began to make his way to the car park to drive home, on the way out he passed a waste bin and was about to throw the ticket away. But something stopped him from doing so, and he felt as if he were taken back in time, a time he remembered so well, a time when we were children … m

The Wind at my Door Third Prize, Blue Mountains Autumn 2011 I am sitting in my lounge Enjoying the peace of the day For perhaps the first time in a week or two I breathe deeply I luxuriate in the stillness of my mind My music is playing It‘s almost inaudible Just enough to encourage the mood I sit, so relaxed, almost entranced I don‘t know when I last felt so at ease My mind wanders I hear again inside my head Words of comfort Words of friendship Encouragements from those Without expectation With no demand for unattainable perfection I am at peace My thoughts reluctantly are disturbed The wind at my door sounding the chimes As I open the door to my home The breeze wafting in Carries perfumes Of earth, and of cooking It carries the sounds of a world at peace It reminds me again of friendships The door to my heart now springs open But my mind holds its train I think of each friend in turn And compare to the wind in all itThere is she who attends Like a Zephyr Bringing freshness and warmth

Aristidis Metaxas Katoomba

Robyn Chaffey Hazelbrook

And the softest caress Then the Tornado Who bowls right in With momentary havoc attending She leaves in her wake Shock and disarray But I‘d not have her any other way A favourite to me is my friend Gust Strong, intermittent visits Often knows just when to come Takes one look, knows precisely where I‘m at His departure leaves me Stronger than his arrival found Then, there‘s little Flurry Who comes and scurries round She can never do enough One day perhaps she‘d let me do for her I think perhaps my friends would say That I‘m the Whirlwind Always spinning Rarely holding my direction Creating turmoil and disorder As I rip and roar along the way The many, varied, perfumed breezes Who have touched my life and stayed Are my backbone! They‘re my strength!

The ever welcome wind at my door! m

Knock N’ Roll

Christina Frost Clayton Woodford Highly Commended, Blue Mountains Autumn 2011

Today I drove my new car! My husband John sat beside me offering words of encouragement and affirmation. I did it! I drove from Woodford to Hazelbrook and back again along Railway Parade. Indeed not a long distance but a milestone for me. It‘s been four years since I held a steering wheel and actually drove a car ...

I recall the last time I drove a car; it was one of those warm Friday afternoons ... the end of the working week and the excitement of heading up to the north coast for a relaxing weekend.

I lifted the boot of my car and placed my overnight bag inside, along with some DVD‘s, art paper and watercolours, anticipating a relaxing time painting the idyllic waterscape from the family cottage overlooking the bay. Yes, it will be a lovely weekend away from the busyness of home and work.

As I walked from home to car, my two beautiful old girls, Lady and Nala, my beloved thirteen year old dogs, shadowed me, ensuring that I wasn‘t going to get away without them! They knew from experience that when the travel bag was wheeled to the car, it meant that I was going away and sometimes they stayed home and were minded by family or friends; although they preferred to be with me. This time they were almost pushing their noses onto me reminding me that they were ready to go when I was! No way was I going to escape!!!

When I opened the door to place my handbag on the front passenger seat, Nala, with the beautiful soft brown hair and large brown eyes, leapt into the car before I had a chance to toss in my bag and jumped through to the rear seat and there she sat! You‘re not going without me! She was my ‗special girl‘ who I had rescued as a ten week old pup and in the thirteen years that she had been my friend, rarely left my side, except when I went to work. Lady, my shaggy haired big girl with one blue and one brown eye, sat bewildered, gazing at us waiting for instructions to get in as well. My car, a two door Lancer, did not lend itself well to a Collie and an Old English sheepdog

climbing through and resting on the rear seat, but we managed.

Nala was in and not budging, so I helped Lady in by lifting her hind legs and backside up and she pulled herself the rest of the way onto the back seat. Lady wasn‘t as flexible as she used to be. Age was creeping up on her and her large sheepdog hips were prone to aches and pains. So, there they were, sitting up looking at me as if to say, ‗Well hurry up, what are you waiting for? Come on, we‘re ready to go.‘ I ambled to the house feeling very relaxed, locked up and began my weekend adventure. John was already en route to the cottage as he worked in the city that day and was leaving from there.

I phoned him before I left to let him know that I wasn‘t far behind him.

Stunning spring! The first of September and the first day of spring, the weather was warm and fine, just what was needed to lift the spirits after a cool and wet winter! It was going to be a fun weekend!

Ah, springtime: a time for renewal and new beginnings. Wonderful!

Traffic! Lots of traffic! Damn! The M4 was at a standstill, a glass truck had lost its load! Hot, humid, intense waiting as the road was cleared. My poor old girls sat in the back, panting, thirsty and agitated. I opened the door and windows to let some air in. I filled their water bowl and they drank, just a little. I phoned John to let him know I would be late and noticed the traffic was moving again.

Relief! I was worried that my girls would become too distressed if we were stuck there for too long.

It was early afternoon as I approached the F3, the traffic wasn‘t too heavy so the drive was pleasant and the breeze, lovely.

I was enjoying listening to my music and the girls were asleep.

Crash! Bang! Bricks flying everywhere!

Truck in front of me was losing its load!

Unbelievable! I veered towards the side of the freeway to avoid the shattering bricks. The truck veered there also. I quickly redirected my Lancer and passed

the truck. No broken glass, no dents, noone hurt. What a blessing!

Further along I pulled over again and phoned John as I needed to talk as I was upset by this second delay. As usual, he consoled me and I regrouped and continued on my way. He was almost at the cottage and I wished I was too!

The drive was so pleasant. The weather was warm and my old girls slept as I played my music and ate a few too many chocolates!

Thump! Hard thump! Really hard thump! What the!!!

What the ...! I‘m rolling! My body was held firm in the grip of my seat. Searing pain in my right shoulder as I was thrust against the driver‘s door and my head exploded with pain as it hit the interior of the car again and again and again!

Black. No memory. Smoke? Burning?

Petrol? What was that smell? My fingers struggled to locate the seatbelt clasp. Got it! It unlocked. Somehow I climbed through the driver‘s shattered window and felt the dry scratchy grass cutting my knees as I moved away from the burning smell.

Surreal. So surreal. Is this my bleeding body? Is this me sobbing? Helpless and hopeless! No! This couldn‘t be my story.

My story is one of a relaxing weekend in the warm sunshine painting the water view from the cottage while John sails his sailboat. This can‘t be my story!

Who are those people crowding around me? What are they saying? Off duty ambulance officer? Medical student?

People? Are those my legs? Yes I have two legs still, bloodied and cut, but two legs indeed. I place my hand on my face.

What! Is that my blood? What is that hole in my face? I want my John! Where are my dogs? I want my dogs! I want my dogs! I want my dogs! My head aches. It screams! Voices and faces everywhere around me. Where are my dogs?????!!!!

She gets out of her car and walks towards me. ‗I‘m sorry‘, she says ... ‗My dogs! I want my dogs! Where are my dogs?‘ I spoke! I speak! I‘m alive!

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But where are my girls? I hear voices saying that the dogs have run off into the bush. They‘re afraid and are hiding. I managed to turn my head and then I saw it.

My car, my Lancer is upside down! It‘s balancing on its squashed, buckled and broken roof. My car! Is that really my car?

Did I just undo my seatbelt while dangling upside down in my shattered and broken car? Did I climb through a smashed window from an upside down position? Not me! Are they my belongings strewn across the bush? Did my car knock down all those trees? Am I really alive? Where are my dogs? I want my dogs! I want my husband! I want my daughter!

I try to stand up and several blurred forms surround me coaxing me back to the ground and steadying me. ‗Stay there, don‘t try to move.‘ ‗The ambulance is on its way.‘ ‗Here‘s something to put on your face.

Hold it to your face to stop the blood from gushing.‘ ‗Don‘t worry; they can do wonderful things with plastic surgery these days, dear.‘ ‗You‘re alive! It‘s okay, you‘re alive!‘ ‗I will call your husband, what‘s the number?‘ I say the number. I‘m running on auto pilot. I hear the man‘s voice, ‗There‘s no answer. I left my name for him to call me.‘ Kind, off duty ambulance driver; how fortunate for me. He gave me another surgical pad to press onto my face. Still gushing blood, still spurting all over me! I look at my hands and they are covered with dry and wet blood. Sticky. ‗Where are my dogs? Lady! Nala! Come to mummy!‘ I call them, but they are nowhere. They are dead. I believe they are dead! People tell me they have run into the bush. Everyone is telling me lies!

They know I won‘t survive without my girls. They are protecting me from the truth. They are dead!

Three ambulances arrive. I see them but cannot hear them nor can I hear the voices of those speaking to me. I am aching with sorrow for my old girls. They were so excited to go on our trip. They trusted me! I let them down. I feel so helpless. I cannot search for my girls.

Agony.

I can hear again. A man is speaking about a semi trailer driver who called the police and ambulance and of the police who closed the F3 northbound lanes because of my accident. My accident! I didn‘t cause my accident! Where is she! Who is she? Why did she hit me from behind! A

king hit! I had no control after a king hit!

You tell me she was drunk! 0.28! Bull!

No-one can drive with an alcohol reading of 0.28, that‘s almost six times the legal limit!!! How did she get into the car?

How did she find the steering wheel?

You say she was doing 140km/hr? And she said she was sorry!!! ‗Just putting this injection into your hand, love. It will ease the pain.‘ Am I in pain? Where are my girls? What are you doing to me? I need to look for Lady and Nala. No words escape from my mouth. My mouth has two openings now. Three lips! Why won‘t my face stop bleeding! ‗Sorry love. I can‘t find the vein. I‘ll try your other hand. There we go. It‘s in now. Take it easy. We will have you at

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the hospital in no time at all.‘ He speaks to the off duty ambo who helped me, ‗Why isn‘t she lying down? Why is she sitting?‘ I fade in and out of consciousness as I am placed on a stretcher, lifted then carried into the ambulance. The vehicle is spinning around me. *** ‗Hey love; it‘s your hubby on the phone.

Just told him you are leaving for John Hunter Hospital. Just talk to him so he can hear your voice.‘ ‗Hello,‘ my voice shakes. ‗I‘m okay.

Love you.‘ John is speaking softly and tells me he will meet me at the hospital.

I am in the ambulance and my husband is going to the hospital to be with me and I have no idea where my beautiful old girls are. I cry. I cry. I cry.

I drift in and out of sleep as the ambulance is driven under siren to John Hunter Hospital. I hear conversations about a black BMW tailgating the ambulance and ‗getting a free ride at 160 km/hr!‘ The ambo driver is calling the police. She misses the turn off and I hear someone tell me that we aren‘t far away and they are waiting for me in the emergency. There are two dreadful accidents en route to emergency and I am one of them.

I find myself in a white room with a very bright light above my head. The doctor is asking me to move my arms, legs and to blink and to speak if I am able. He is amazed! My injuries are not as serious as expected given the horrific state of my car as a result of the high speed crash. I am blessed to be alive. Not a broken bone. But my face ... and why am I so dizzy?

I fade into sleep. I hear voices and screaming and sobbing. A woman is hysterical. Another woman is angry.

Another is snoring. I open my eyes and there is John leaning over me, touching

my bloodied hair and he has tears ‗We have just come from the crash site. is that drunken woman! The high range trickling down his face.

We are from the Crash Investigation drink driver with 0.28 blood alcohol Unit. You‘re alive!‘ He repeats reading! A doctor takes my blood to test He speaks, ‗Why won‘t they leave us incredulously. ‗Your Lancer has been my blood alcohol level. Nil. alone.‘ I fade again. towed to our holding depot and your It hurts!!! Stop that! ‗Ouch! It stings!‘ I wake. ‗Lady and Nala! Our girls are lost belongings are stored there too. We The doctor has cleaned my face. He has on the F3,‘ I cry. picked everything up. Everything is safe wiped away the dried blood and is sewing ‗Please John, find them,‘ I plead. He will but I don‘t think you will be driving that the deep puncture wound in my cheek not leave me. His wife is bloodied and car again ...‘ and then must sew my lip as it is slashed cut open. Her face is slit and she has a ‗I got out myself. I didn‘t know it was all the way across. There goes my punctured cheek with blood still spurting upside down. I crawled out myself. kissability! Disability. I am fortunate that profusely. She cannot sit up and she is Where are my dogs?‘ the puncture has missed the facial nerve vomiting. He will not go. It is now about and I can move my face. It hurts so 7pm. The accident happened at 4:30pm. I break into tears and sob again. much! Sewing my lip is stinging so Two old dogs are somewhere along the ‗I am amazed that your wife is alive,‘ he much! very busy F3. Terrified. Or are they tells John. Then he pulls out his camera dead? and shows John a picture. This is the car. All done. I sleep. I think. I remember.

I‘m dizzy. I cry. I wake. I vomit. It is Time passes as we wait and many nurses, John‘s face turns ashen grey. morning. I‘m alone in a room. I panic! I doctors and technicians hover near me ‗I got out all by myself ...‘ cry out. A nurse is here. discussing options for my treatment. I ‗It‘s all right. You had a car drift in and out of sleep as the morphine continues to smother No words escape from my mouth. My accident. It was dreadful but you are safe now in hospital.‘ my pain. John holds my hand mouth has two openings now. Three ‗Where is John? Where are and strokes my forehead.

Another patient is brought into lips! Why won‘t my face stop bleeding! my dogs?‘ the emergency rooms and the She speaks, ‗Go to sleep now ambulance driver is the same I drift into sleep again, thinking about my and rest.‘ lady who drove me to this place. She girls and all that had happened. How I sleep. notices me and speaks. would I tell Alyce? How will I tell my I don‘t know how long I slept, but I wake ‗We saw your dogs! They were on the daughter about our girls? I wake and John to learn that it is midmorning. A nurse is side of the F3 near where you had your tells me that he has phoned Alyce and speaking to me with a soft voice. accident.‘ told her about the accident and told her ‗Your husband just phoned. He has not to worry as I am safe. How will we ‗Are they alive?‘ I question. found one of your dogs.‘ tell her about the girls? I sob again. What ‗Yes, they are sitting and when we called about work? My class at school! I won‘t ‗Is the dog ... Alive ...?‘ I ask ... to them they went into the bush, they are be able to teach until they sew my face ‗Yes it is,‘ she replies with a smile. afraid.‘ She responded. ‗There are people up. John phones a teacher colleague with ‗Which dog is it?‘ I ask. I am so trying to get them for you.‘ the news. We wait and wait for hospital frightened to find out the answer to my They are really alive! Then I feel numb decisions regarding my treatment. It‘s a question. I am confused. I‘m a mess! with fear. They are absolutely terrified busy night at John Hunter Hospital. ‗It is Nala. Your husband said to tell you beside a major, busy highway. Who Fridays in casualty are always busy he has found Nala.‘ knows what injuries they have! ‗Please nights...

I burst into tears. Uncontrollable sobs.

God, don‘t let them run onto the road. ‗Please John, look for the girls. You can‘t Tears of joy, tears of confusion, sorrow They have survived this major crash and help me here. The doctors will look after and regret. I have betrayed my old girls‘ rollover; surely You won‘t let them die me, but there‘s no-one to look out for the trust. I do not know how to feel or what now! Please God, keep them safe. girls. Please find them.‘ I beg. I sob. I to think ... If John has found Nala alive, Please!‘ I beg. plead. where is Lady and is she alive? I am John sits very still and quietly holds my Reluctantly he leaves to search for our numb and roll over. My head spins again hand. I can see in his eyes: he is filled old girls. and I drift off. The morphine is doing its with sorrow. He has experienced extreme I drift in and out of sleep. I am moved to work. loss in an accident before. I can feel his a tunnel for a CT scan. Next, I am taken Sometime later I hear a voice and feel a pain. Intense and excruciating, his tears trickle. So do mine, but I sob, loudly and for an x-ray and vomit on the nurse. She gentle touch on my arm ... is cross with me! I didn‘t mean it. I‘m deeply. ‗Tina, Tina, your husband has phoned; he very sorry but I‘m sick. Morphine does has found your other dog!‘ Two policemen walk up to my bed. One that to me. They manage to x-ray me speaks to me.

I wake to the news. Unbelievable! Is that while I lay down as I cannot sit up. ‗You‘re alive!‘ he exclaims with surprise. Spinning deliriously! I hate this!!! Where true? Really true? Are you pretending so

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I will feel better? I think, but no words come. ‗It‘s true. He has both your pets alive and will be here to see you soon.‘ I sob again, uncontrollable sobs of joy and relief. Thankyou God! All was taken from me ... I sat there on the side of the road with nothing but a bloodied mess, helpless and hopeless. All has been returned to me.

God, thankyou for my life. Thankyou for my good and kind husband. Thankyou for my beautiful daughter. Thankyou for my dear old girls. All has been returned to me. I drift back to sleep. ‗Mummy, mummy!‘ I hear sobs and Alyce‘s voice. She hugs me and wipes her tears. She places a soft, brown teddy bear in my arms. John walks in with a smile and sits beside me. I gaze in wonder that they are with me and I am alive and cared for in a hospital. ‗Here you both are.‘ I am content. Sick, sorry and sore, but content. ‗John, where were the girls? How did you find them?‘ I ask.

He speaks softly yet clearly. ‗Here‘s an amazing story for you! Last night I drove the van and worked out from the police description where you had the accident. I parked on the side of the F3. It was so busy and the van was shaking as cars and trucks sped past. I got out of the van and walked into the bush and gathered a few of your bits and pieces which had been flung into the bush when the car rolled. It was 11pm so it was very dark. I had my torch but couldn‘t see any sign of them.

No Nala and no Lady anywhere. I tried to sleep in the van hoping they would come back, but at 2am it was hopeless. The traffic was relentless and noisy and the van shook every time a semi-trailer sped by. I needed to relieve myself so did a wee and decided to leave some work rags right there, just in case the girls would smell my scent and come back to the scene of the accident and wait. They didn‘t come. So I drove to the cottage as I was so confused and tired and managed to sleep for a couple of hours. I didn‘t want to return to you without some news of Nala and Lady. Early this morning I drove back to the scene of the accident and our beautiful, brown Nala was sitting

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Go to narratormagazine.com.au/submit.php to contribute your piece. right where I went to the toilet, beside my work rags! She talked to me loudly as she does ... rrr rrr rrr, you know how she does that! I cuddled her ears the way she likes and patted her softly, as she was moving ever so slowly. Poor, sore old girl. I couldn‘t see Lady anywhere. Then I phoned the hospital with the news I had found Nala. I decided to look for Lady but had no idea where to start. So ... I said to Nala, ‗Where‘s Lady?‘ and she looked up at me then put her head down and ears back and headed off into the bush. So I followed her. She didn‘t miss a step! She walked down into the valley, between bushes and scrub and trees, along a stream and through more bush, up the hill and towards the power lines in the distance. I followed, not sure if it would be for nothing but she kept going, so I continued to follow her. After about a couple of kilometres, she stopped and sat down. I thought she was exhausted and lost but when I looked up, there was poor old Lady sitting on the side of a hill, beyond the creek in the bush, just gazing ahead. We walked over to her and she was shaking with excitement to see us.

After a while, we all returned very slowly to the van and I took them to the cottage.

They‘re there now, sleeping and safe.

Nala is an amazing and very clever girl!‘ Days passed as I recovered in hospital. I ached to leave the hospital and to see my girls but was petrified at the thought of being in a car again. I thought about how I could live in the hospital forever but I knew that I had to get into a car and go to the cottage as my girls were there waiting for me. I knew I had to be a passenger, I knew I would never drive a car again! I was never going on that F3 again! I was never going home to Woodford! Never!!!

So we went to the cottage. It was closer than Woodford.

The dogs saw me. Lady shook and fell over as she approached me. Poor old girl has vertigo... like me! Rollover will do that, every time! But we are alive! My poor, dear old Lady. Nala made her joyful noises but was unusually quiet. I patted her soft, brown fur and stroked her ears and found lumps. Two lumps! Ticks!

Two ticks! Oh no! She isn‘t going to die from ticks after all she has been through!

Not my beautiful Nala! She rescued Lady, she can‘t die now. I sob again.

Bitter tears of anger and frustration,

terrified for her life!

John lifted the girls into his van and again I climbed into the passenger seat, terrified. We took them both to the vet who shaved their long hair and thoroughly checked them over, removing ticks and ensuring their recovery.

Thankyou yet again God ...

After six weeks I was reluctantly brave enough to be a passenger in a car again. I had to return to the mountains as I had a facial skin cancer operation at Nepean Hospital to return to! The surgeon had delayed it long enough. Up until now he had not been able to operate on my post accident face... ‗Too messy,‘ he said! ‗Your face needs time to heal before we can remove the cancer and place a skin graft there.‘ We returned to our Blue Mountains‘ home. The girls rode in the back of the van and slept most of the way. I, on the other hand spent the entire three hour journey, crying all the way home.

Terrified.

It‘s been four years since that accident. I had the skin cancer removed and replaced with a skin graft from my ear. My slashed, accident face has healed, it‘s scarred but together! I still have vestibular disorder or vertigo. I still have headaches and poor concentration at times. I have since recovered from breast cancer and am one year cancer free!

Nala passed away eleven months after the accident. She was never the same energetic dog and finally succumbed to a form of pneumonia. It broke my heart to have her put to sleep. It broke my heart.

Lady missed her dreadfully. They had been together for fourteen years. Always together. Lady followed Nala everywhere. Now Lady followed me.

Lady passed away two years after the accident. She was almost fifteen years old. She died at home, I was nearby. My dear old Lady was so tired.

I miss my old girls. They were so brave and loyal. My best friends. I do not have another dog. I couldn‘t bear the grief again. Not now anyway, maybe in the future, who knows.

It‘s been four years since the accident and I drove my new car today ... m Christina Frost Clayton Woodford

JE Doherty Eglinton

Always The Children Second Prize, Central Tablelands Spring 2011 I make the coffee strong though I know sleep will be hard to find even after the long drive home. The station is quiet except for occasional buzz of the radio and the tap-tap-tap of the keyboard. I pull the last of the paperwork from the printer, hurriedly scrawling my name at the bottom of the page. After a quick glance, I toss it into the filing tray for morning. I hesitate at the door, and then return to check the roster. Of late it has a habit of changing almost magically from day to day.

I should have walked out when I had the chance. The roster has changed.

Tomorrow, I‘m working with the Ogre.

Now, not only will sleep be hard to find, but waking will be even harder.

The Ogre is a formidable woman, a sergeant who before coming here, spent her entire working life lecturing school kids on stranger danger and road safety. She had never faced an angry man, never done a real day's police work in her life and she isn't about to start now.

When you greet the prospect of the next day's work with genuine dread, you know it‘s time for a change. *** The house is dark but I don‘t turn on the light. The familiar halls prove no obstacle. A soft warm glow peeks beneath the back room's door. The hinges sigh as I creep inside. It‘s strange how such a boisterous child can ware such an angel‘s face in sleep. I brush aside a wisp of hair and gently touch my lips to his brow. ‗Sleep well little one.‘ Clare is standing at the door when I turn.

Through the net of shadows I can see her tired smile. ‗I love you,‘ she whispers, kissing my cheek before returning to bed.

***

I look hopefully at the Ogre but she stands as emotionless as ever. I fumble with my pocket and take out my note book, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat.

‗What have I told you about leaving the kitchen in a mess?‘ The Ogre waves her arm at the unwashed coffee cups in the sink. ‗And the filing is supposed to be done It is hard to offer comfort to someone when you are facing your own worst nightmare. I before you go home.‘ have never been overly religious but each ‗I knew I was back this morning.‘ I push night since my baby was born, I offer up past her into the sanctuary of the male the same simple prayer. locker room.

Last night, I had a premonition today was going to be bad. So far nothing has happened to change my mind. Quick shifts are a drain at the best of times but with a forty five minute drive home and back …

That leaves only five and a half hours to squeeze in some sleep before you are back on the job.

‘I do not ask for much.

Rap Rap RAP! ‗We've got a job.‘

She howls animal-like, all wild eyes, leaning away and pulling the baby tight against her chest, sobbing kisses onto the tiny cold face. ‗My baby … my baby … Don‘t take my baby …‘

Just see my baby safe tonight.'

As the ambulance officer moves to take the child, I touch her hair and her mother's hand. ‗I am truly sorry. If there is anything I can do ...‘ What more can you say?

The Ogre taps her watch.

I talk softly, touching her hand, sharing some of the pain. ‗I‘ll take care of her.‘ I pry her fingers loose. ‗I promise‘ Her arms fall away and she sinks back into the chair like she is deflating.

If they‘re already dead, the ambos usually hit the road with a smug, ‗Sorry guys, job for the contractors.‘ I splash water on my face. Technically, we I am surprised when they take the baby don‘t even start for another fifteen minutes. from me and gently wrap her against the Why am I always right? This is definitely cold and carry her out to the ambulance. going to be a bad day.

I sit in the car, hand trembling on the The ambulance pulls into the driveway just steering wheel. ‗Sergeant? Can you do the ahead of the patrol car. I curse my luck.

PM tomorrow?‘ With a dead'n this early in the shift and no way known-to-man to prise the Ogre's note ‗It's your job.‘ book from her pocket, it looks like I‘m in ‗I would really prefer someone else to do for a busy day. it.‘ I am pleading now.

As soon as I walk through the door I know. ‗You are doing it, and that is the end of the This is no ordinary deceased. matter.‘

The room is dark enough that it doesn‘t *** matter if my eyes are open or not. I stare at The mother is crooning to her baby, eyes red rimmed and as lifeless as the child. the ceiling through closed lids, waiting for ‗Come to bed Tony,‘ Clare whispers from Why is it always the children? I ask myself. the door. sleep to come.

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Karen Maber

Indigenous artworks Corporate and educational art

www.karenmaber.com.au After another slurp of coffee, Eigor lays out the tools of his trade. They gleam ‗You said that hours ago.‘ She watches me bright like the room. stare into the cot but returns to her bed The Government Medical Officer sweeps when I make no reply. through the plastic doors, absently leafing The rocking chair presses hard into my through his paperwork. back but my head nods forward in a half

Snap. Snap. It’s not the child.

doze. I snap awake, straining to hear my Jamie's quiet breathing, one hand seeking the comforting warmth of his body.

Snap.

‗I'll be in soon.‘

I wake stiff and cramped, trying to rub the twinge from my neck. The slight rise and fall of Jamie's chest makes me smile. The electric jug rumbles in the kitchen and I can hear Clare humming quietly as she waits for the water to boil. I push myself out of the rocking chair and shuffle into the hall.

Clare frowns as I walk into the kitchen. ‗You should have come to bed. Your eyes look haunted.‘ Sleep wasn't going to change that.

Clare loves my eyes; she tells me they are my most striking feature, clear grey-blue, bright like diamonds. Diamond eyes, she would say. I can see it hurts her to see my fear. *** The room basks in fluorescent brightness.

White tile walls reflect chrome and shining steel. The bench and slab table are buffed to a mirror shine. Rows of refrigerated lockers line the wall through the double plastic doors. The smell of formalin is heady, almost nauseating but it can‘t mask the stench of the dead.

Ted Greige, the orderly, is balding and stooped, more suited to a torture chamber than this sterile antiseptic room. Although it is very clichéd, he is known to the police as Eigor. That he enjoys his work is plain.

There is always an eager glint in Eigor‘s eye. After a slurp of coffee and a bite from a sandwich slathered in red jam, he smiles. ‗Slept in,‘ he apologises tossing his breakfast on the bench.

‗Occurrence pad ... P.79A Coroner's report ... identification statement ... All seems in order.‘ He looks up. ‗Ah, Constable ...‘ he asks brightly, noticing me for the first time. ‗Is this …‘ He rifles through the papers again. ‗…Catherine Norris?‘

Snap.

But all I see is the child. Like my Jamie.

Snap.

Small and helpless.

I promised to look after her.

At that moment I realise I could kill them both, Eigor and the doctor, but I know if I let go of the bench my legs won‘t hold me.

Still, I can‘t keep my eyes shut, can‘t look I look at the child and draw a deep breath. I away, and that frightens me most of all. touch her icy hair again. ‗Yes.‘ Eigor pries out the rib cage and sets it aside ‗Ok Ted, lets get started.‘ The GMO looks to reveal the child's inner most secrets. long at the child then moves to a large Heart: No congenital whiteboard and begins to write. abnormality. Heart valves and muscle normal.

External and General Appearances: Female child of Aorta & Branches: Normal. stated age. Very cyanosed lips, Lungs & Air Passages: No fingernails, soles of feet, and foreign body in air passages. palms. Post mortem lividity No fractured ribs. Lungs fixed to back, upper half of cyanosed. Otherwise normal ... abdominal wall and anterior chest wall. Head As the doctor sorts and dissects the tiny circumference ... organs, Eigor turns his attention to her head, slicing the scalpel around her hair Doctor Stanton wields his tape measure line. My eyes are drawn to the baby's face, like a builder, cold and business like. the only part that is still the child. I clench Eigor moves to the child. His scalpel traces my jaw against a nausea that threatens to a thin red line from the hollow of her throat choke me. As I stare, it is no longer the to her pubic bone. face of Catherine Norris. It‘s my boy, my The wet tearing sound pulls strings in my Jamie. stomach, but I‘m frozen. I can‘t even look When Eigor peels the baby's face back to away. I feel the colour draining from my expose the skull, I stagger from the room. face and grip the bench for support.

It‘s all I can take. I shut my eyes to the horror but that death's-head mask is burnt ‗Doc, you hear about that footy player?‘ into my brain. Nothing can scour it clean. I ‗Which one?‘ clutch the basin, retching as the sound of the bone saw echoes from the other room. ‗The one up for rape.‘ With clean, deft strokes, Eigor flays back her skin to expose *** the ribs.

When I walk in the rear door, Clare's worry ‗Must have missed that one.‘ is evident. She is holding Jamie. I walk ‗Yeah, apparently she was all for it till he towards them but I stop. I have to look stuck it up her backwards.‘ He works with away. I can‘t face my own son without a professional, grisly ease. ‗Split her open. seeing that raw, death's-head mask. If Clare That‘s when she cried rape.‘ Eigor picks up thought my eyes were haunted this morning, what does she see now? a small set of bone cutters, still too large for the work they have to do.

They feel empty. Cold. m

The refrigerator door opens with a hiss and he carries the plastic wrapped bundle to the table. Eigor unzips the over sized body bag and places the child on the table. She looks so small and pale, like a porcelain Snap goes the first rib. christening doll. Her blue tinged lips are I squeeze shut moist eyes. This is not the curled in a pout of sleep. child, only the cloak she wore, I whisper to But it‘s not sleep. myself.

JE Doherty Eglinton

The Man Who Talked To Animals

David Bowden Medlow Bath

Third Prize, Blue Mountains Spring 2011

A few years ago there was a humble man called Henry, who lived not so very far from here. He worked in the mailroom of a large media corporation, sorting through the many thousands of letters they received every week. It wasn‘t a particularly rewarding job but he decided that the best way to progress within the organisation was to ensure his service was of the highest standard possible, so set up a comprehensive system to make sure everyone got their letters on time.

Now, normally this would be enough for Henry to be noticed and considered favourably for a promotion but he had a boss called Lucia who was a very demanding lady. It didn‘t matter how hard he worked or how much overtime he put in, she was never satisfied, always pointing out what he could do better or faster. Many would have told Lucia where to stick her job but Henry believed so strongly in the goodness of people that, rather than think she was being unreasonable, he became convinced that she had his best interests at heart and that all of the things she said about him being lazy and stupid must be true.

best wishes for the day, raced down the road to catch the ten past eight bus from the end of the street. It wasn‘t the most reliable service, yet on most days two minutes was all he needed. This time, however, he left fractionally later than usual and despite a valiant sprint was only able to watch the back of the bus pull away and shrink into the busy traffic.

‗You‘d better eat up or you‘ll be late again. You don‘t want to get in trouble like you did last week.‘

nearly vanished. Presently she started retrieving an array of crystals and aligning them in a very particular circular arrangement, all the while muttering and faintly singing in a language he could not discern to be English. She appeared to have no interest in coffee or tea and Jim,

It would be half an hour until the next one arrived and he didn‘t want to upset Saskia by returning home, so Henry decided to visit a nearby cafe he often frequented. After ordering coffee he sat himself at a table as far away from the

the proprietor, usually highly attentive to the needs of his customers, left her alone.

After about five minutes of this, she carefully returned everything to her trolley and left. Henry had been too busy imagining the angry face of Lucia awaiting him at work to notice these goings on.

Realising it was time to get back to the bus stop, Henry swigged the last of his coffee, grabbed his suitcase and stood up.

Only then did he realise that one crystal remained on the old lady‘s table.

Thinking it might not be too late to catch up with her, he picked it up and pocketed it, paid for his drink and left. Sure enough, there she was, ambling down the footpath in the opposite direction to where he was heading.

Henry raced after her and, on catching up, announced his presence loudly, ‗Excuse me, I think you left this behind?‘

She turned around with a swiftness that belied her age, stared at him intently and muttered something he could not understand. Henry thrust the stone into her hand. ‗Here you are,‘ he said. The dog barked twice Henry lived with his wife Saskia in a before the old lady quietened him modest semi detached house, on the with a guttural admonition. She outskirts of the city. They had a small stared at the stone with forensic garden and every morning while he intensity, as though she had never was eating breakfast a small fairy wren front door as possible. He liked watching seen it before, then returned her gaze to would come and trill such a wonderful the patrons come and go from a safe Henry. song that Henry would leave the back distance. Shortly afterwards, the door door open and ask his wife to stop burst open and in shuffled an elderly lady ‗Thank you, son‘ she said in a thick whatever she was doing so that they in a fading, once elegant, black overcoat, European accent, ‗you are good man.‘ could share in the experience. One day dragging an overladen red trolley behind Henry smiled and before he knew what Henry remarked to Saskia, ‗You know her. A small black and white terrier tried what I wish for more than anything in the to follow her in, which drew the attention was going on, found that she had wrapped her arms around him in a world, my love? That I could know what of the cafe‘s owner. After some grateful hug. ‗A good man,‘ she repeated, he‘s singing about. I bet he‘s telling us negotiation, the dog was taken outside something of real importance, I can feel and tied to the nearest pole. From time to ‗your wish come true. You not like others,‘ she added. time he could be heard barking it.‘ enthusiastically at passersby.

Henry took his leave of her and walked Saskia smiled, ‗You‘re a dreamer, my darling. These things are not for us to The woman returned, sat at a table not far briskly towards the bus stop. He arrived just in time, too, since the eight forty know, some mysteries are not meant to from Henry, and began pulling items from her trolley. She began with a series pulled in five minutes early. Many would be solved.‘ of loose papers, most yellowed with age, curse this inconsistency but not Henry, he ‗I know,‘ replied Henry, ‗but I can‘t get just wanted to reach his destination as holding some closely to her face as the thought out of my head.‘ though the writings they contained were soon as possible.

At this, Henry quickly emptied his bowl of cereal, brushed his teeth, put on his new shoes and suit and, with Saskia‘s

The bus driver mumbled something to Henry as he alighted. Henry wondered how he got the job with such a poor command of English, but these thoughts vanished as his mind rehearsed fresh lashings from Lucia‘s sharp tongue.

Arriving in the mail room, all was silent,

46

Jane Lennon Paper Mache Artist

artworks ~ gallery ~ workshops

www.janelennon.com.au dark, and no one else was present, so in a he came upon a large park, where only short time Henry arranged all of the mail one person was walking their labrador, in an unhurried, dreamlike, way. Henry and was ready to deliver it. spied a bench under a Moreton Bay Fig Just as he was about to afford himself the tree far from the street and determinedly luxury of thinking he‘d got away with it, walked over, resolving to rest there, away Lucia stormed into the mail room and from human contact, to make sense of bawled something at him, while pointing Lucia‘s conduct. But no matter which to her watch. Henry recoiled and way he pitched it, the answers would not prepared for the daily dose of name come. calling.

After sitting there for a while, suddenly, ‗Joo joo besmiter grabble wibbit! Gool on his immediate left, he heard a rustle of pergammon!‘ old leaves and a tiny male voice say, ‗Oh What on earth was this? Henry had never dear! No bugs here. It‘s not like when I was young.‘ heard her talk like that. ‗Sorry, Lucia, I‘m not following you …‘ At this the veins on her forehead rose like sheets of sinewy lightning and she shrieked, ‗Fopor Boohaa! Shilly toller!‘ ‗I didn‘t know you were bilingual but would you mind using English, please?‘ Henry used his most diplomatic tone. ‗Garsnibble snop! Joo git MARDLE!‘ Lucia raised her right hand and pointed to the door. There was no mistaking this, she was asking him to go.

voices suddenly buzzed around his head, singing in perfect harmony. It was two dragonflies: ‘We love the sun, we love the sky It’s a beautiful day We don’t ask why.’

And off they flew, gracefully zigzagging through the air, on their way to the lily pond.

He began to notice other voices too, the labrador he‘d seen earlier, muttering to his master, ‗Come on now, go faster Henry peered down through columns of please!‘ and a cricket calling out to shadow into the browny froth of unswept someone. ‗Els-s-s-s-s-s-sie! Elsie! Els-s-s leaves but couldn‘t see anybody, only a -s-s-sie, where are you? Els-s-s-s-sie!‘ small magpie darting back and forth, Henry had to share these experiences seemingly unafraid of him. Then the with Saskia. It was time to head home. voice spoke again, ‗And people are no use! Once upon a time mothers brought When Henry got there, Saskia was in the their children down to the park to share garden, trimming her roses. She was very breadcrumbs with us. Nowadays hardly surprised to see him and this was when anyone visits.‘ the realisation dawned. Neither of them could understand anything the other said.

Henry was certain the voice came from To Henry, Saskia spoke in the same the same direction as the bird. What a mumbo jumbo lingo Lucia had used and, marvellous pet, to remember all of that to her, he mumbled and whined conversation. There was no one else it incoherently. What was happening? Had could have been. he lost his mind? They were trying to ‗Hello, little birdy, who‘s a clever boy resolve this situation when the fairy wren then?‘ Henry called out. flew into the garden, sat on a branch, ‗Who do you think you‘re talking to?‘ the puffed up his chest and began to sing.

Henry was astonished when he realised magpie replied, ‗some brainwashed fool who escaped from a pet shop? Have you that this time the song had words.

‗I can work up the fifteen minutes this afternoon. The bus was early this morning and ...‘ Henry‘s voice trailed off as Lucia grabbed the phone, dialed and screamed something to someone. Shortly after a security guard appeared and minutes later Henry was back in the street, the cool fresh air biting harder than usual. He went without a struggle, but it brought any bread with you?‘ was the only time in his life he thought ‗What? No. How come you can talk?‘ about contacting a union representative. asked Henry.

Which way next? What would he tell ‗I might ask the same of you,‘ answered Saskia? Henry was propelled to return the magpie, ‗normally you people make down the street where he only minutes your grunting noises and then move on, before had strode in conscious confidence that is, when you‘re not wrecking the of his troubles, now it was alien terrain. place.‘ On every other day he always turned left at Dolphin Street. Today he did not, since ‗This is incredible. What a discovery for in his mind it was not the same street, the science!‘ Henry exclaimed. same suburb, and he was not the same ‗You humans amaze me,‘ the magpie person. He walked straight ahead. responded in an exasperated tone, ‗you

‗Hear ye! Hear ye! The time is currently eleven o‘clock eastern standard time.

Here is the news. Unemployment among pigeons has reached an unprecedented level. The Council Of Birds will hold an extraordinary meeting in Memory Park at 5pm this afternoon to discuss. All are welcome to attend.‘ He paused for a second, then resumed, ‗The price of birdseed has gone up again and as a result our caged friends are doing it tough. If you have any surplus, please consider making a donation. Lastly, the Jones boy in 15 Scotch Street has taken up the finally work out what‘s going on and then slingshot again. We recommend that you Soon the amount of traffic lessened, the consider this a no fly zone until further office buildings became houses and oak you claim the credit for it. Now, if you haven‘t got any food, I have a family to notice. That concludes today‘s bulletin.‘ trees lined the road. The change was feed.‘ With that, he fluttered to the other With that he flew up and over the fence gradual and given the recent events into the neighbour‘s yard and started all crowding his mind, it took a while for side of the tree and kept foraging.

Henry to register the difference. Presently over again.

While Henry was still taking this in, tiny

Henry began to excitedly explain to Saskia what the bird had said before remembering that it was futile. He looked beyond her questioning eyes and through the window she stood in front of.

Something caught his eye. Letting out a yell, he raced indoors, leaving Saskia more puzzled than ever. This was all a little weird for her. Henry had spotted the letters written on a packet of cereal and realised that he could understand them.

Maybe he could communicate by writing? Sure enough, when he scribbled ‗can you read this?‘ on a scrap of paper and showed it to Saskia and she nodded, he knew he had made a breakthrough. He spent the next few hours writing down his experiences while she jotted little questions now and again. Saskia read his words incredulously, but knew that her husband was incapable of lying.

Later that afternoon, a friend from Henry‘s work came over to their house.

Her name was Jenny.

She was the office hippy and always talked about the spiritual dimensions of life.

Many laughed at her behind her back for this, but never Henry. He always listened intently to what she said and learned many things from her experiences and studies. That morning she had heard Lucia complaining about Henry turning up drunk to work and knew this could not be true, since Henry never drank alcohol. He was so glad to see her and they conversed via paper. He told her what happened that morning and she seemed especially interested in the old woman. ‗Did she say anything that was out of the ordinary?‘ Jenny asked. ‗She told me my wish would come true,‘ wrote Henry. ‗Did she have an animal with her?‘ ‗A dog,‘ he answered.

Jenny nodded, ‗I think you‘d better come

and see my friend, Josef. He‘s a shaman and may be able to help.‘ Jenny took Henry to Josef‘s home, a large house he shared with three friends.

Josef ushered them into a small room where he did a quick examination of Henry, feeling his pulse and looking into his eyes. Jenny explained to Josef what Henry had told her. Josef then turned to Henry.

Henry thanked them all and returned home. He was exhausted and soon fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Josef had asked that Henry wear the same clothes as the day before, which he did.

Saskia had made him some sandwiches and thoughtfully provided some seeds for Paracelsus. After saying goodbye to Josef they set out at the appointed hour, on foot in Henry‘s case, Paracelsus perched on his shoulder most of the way but flying ‗The woman you met before is witch. She from time to time. It was agreed that they put you under spell. You know where she should start by returning near to the cafe lives?‘ where Henry first saw the old woman and ‗No,‘ Henry replied, before asking ‗how that they would make enquiries with the local animals there. Paracelsus, wise come I can understand you?‘ parrot that he was, had a good idea where ‗I study these things with teacher in to start.

Ukraine. You need find this lady. ‗She had a dog you say, hmmmm, those Paracelsus will help you,‘ Josef creatures simply never know when to announced. keep their mouths shut. Let‘s try over ‗Who is Paracelsus?‘ asked Henry. here.‘ They approached a garden gate with a ‗Beware Of The Dog‘ plaque on it and were rewarded with the predicted hurricane of angry snarling from the Rottweiler who lived there. ‗Get off my street! I‘m thinkin‘ about takin‘ a piece outta your leg. You‘re just lucky there‘s a gate!‘ the dog seethed through impressively bared teeth. ‗Oh do be quiet,‘ admonished Paracelsus, ‗no one‘s coming to invade your precious slab of paradise. We just want to ask a few questions.‘

Josef smiled and led them into the back garden, where a magnificent crimson and green King Parrot sat on a perch. Josef went over and whispered something in the bird‘s ear. It cocked its head attentively, made a few chattering noises then, in a voice as clear as any BBC announcer said, ‗Be here at 8 o‘clock tomorrow morning. We begin our journey then.‘

‗Like what? We don‘t like strangers askin‘ no questions round here!‘ Henry piped up, ‗Have you seen a little black and white terrier go by, with an old lady who pulls along a red trolley?‘ ‗Yeah!‘ replied the Rottweiler derisively, ‗I‘ve seen that little pipsqueak, and if I ever get the chance, he‘s dog meat!‘ At this point a languorous aristocratic voice called out from the direction of the house, ‗It‘s no good asking Dougie

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47

48

BURNISHED: BURNSIDE LIFE STORIES A collection of life accounts from residents of Burnside Children’s Homes, Sydney Compiled by Kate Shayler Author of The Long Way Home and A Tuesday Thing

www.kateshayler.com anything. He‘s a dog. By definition that means he‘s stupid. Why don‘t you ask someone with a little more intelligence?

Like me, for example.‘ Looking up towards the source of the voice, Henry spotted a black cat sitting upright on the second floor balcony rail, licking his left paw and looking generally unimpressed. ‗Why don‘t ya come down here and say that, Charlie?‘ barked Dougie. ‗No thank you. And it‘s Charles, if you don‘t mind ... existentialist philosopher by trade,‘ the cat added for the visitors‘ sake. ‗Lazy good for nothin‘ layabout!‘ ‗It‘s called thinking, my dear, you may have heard of it. With these whiskers I tune into the cosmos, they‘re my antennae. Nothing escapes my attention.‘ Paracelsus asked the cat, ‗So what do you know about the old lady?‘ The cat‘s eyes narrowed and he smiled, ‗Come a bit closer, little bird, I‘m having trouble hearing you.‘ Paracelsus twitched and, looking decidedly nervous, sharply replied, ‗Just answer the question, please.‘ ‗Alright, keep your feathers on, I am a cat after all. The old lady lives somewhere out near Bannerman Lane. Take the third road to the left and follow the signs to the village of Elsewhere.‘ ‗Thank you so much,‘ said Henry, ‗but how could you possibly know that?‘ ‗Elementary, my dear boy,‘ the cat answered, ‗I‘ve seen her pass by in the bus a few times and since the next and final stop is in Bannerman Lane and she also walks by on foot, I deduce that she must live thereabouts.‘ ‗Amazing!‘ exclaimed Henry. ‗You‘re not dealing with some shabby tabby here, you know,‘ At this point a woman‘s voice could be heard calling out from the rear of the house.

www.writtenforwomen.com

‗I‘ll get there when I feel like it,‘ yawned ‗I‘m sick of them,‘ said the donkey, ‗and you‘d be depressed too if you had a name the cat. like Delbert.‘ ‗But she‘s our mistress, we must obey!‘ Paracelsus, ever sensitive to the At this point Henry and Paracelsus left exploitation of his fellow beasts, piped them debating and continued on their up, ‗You‘re oppressed by farmers, aren‘t way. you? What you need to do is escape!‘ Henry and Paracelsus followed the cat‘s ‗Oh no,‘ said Delbert, ‗they‘re ok to me, instructions and soon found themselves really, and I could get away quite easily leaving the town behind. They since they never lock the gate. But what‘s occasionally stopped along the way, the point? Where would I go? A few either to talk with some of the animals years back people were always asking me they met or for Henry to eat his to give rides to their children but now no sandwiches and Paracelsus his seeds. It one comes. I don‘t think anyone likes was a gorgeous day, with barely a cloud me.‘ in the sky and the trees alive with the chatter of birds. Although Henry never ‗Why don‘t you come with us?‘ asked lost sight of his mission, there were Henry. moments when a sensation of peace ‗Really?‘ Delbert‘s ears pricked up, ‗but descended upon him. At such times he wouldn‘t I get in the way?‘ wondered whether he might prefer to never return to the world of men and their Paracelsus chipped in, ‗We‘d love you to insatiable demands, then he thought of join us.‘ Saskia and the home they were working Delbert showed them how to open the to pay off and his resolve returned with gate and soon he was travelling alongside new vigour.

Henry, with Paracelsus on his back. It He learned much from Paracelsus, whom had been years since anybody had asked Josef had befriended while visiting the for his help and it brought a spring to his Mountains. Paracelsus spoke of the step. He knew exactly where the old challenges facing the planet. Henry didn‘t woman and the dog lived and agreed to understand all that he was told but take them to her cottage. It was back Paracelsus was clearly just about the best from the lane, down a pathway which led informed, most intelligent person he had to the edge of the wood. Finally they ever met and he was a bird! The way in reached her gate and at this point Delbert which he spoke was very different from refused to proceed. any learning Henry had experienced in ‗What‘s the problem?‘ asked Paracelsus. his own schooling, read in any book or seen on TV. ‗No offence,‘ said Delbert to Henry, ‗but you said she‘s a witch. I‘m worried that Finally reaching Bannerman Lane, the she might turn me into a human.‘ couple were still unsure exactly where the old woman lived. As they walked slowly on the narrow curb they heard a strange groaning sound ahead. When they turned the corner, a donkey‘s head peered at them over a fence.

Henry smiled and said, ‗None taken. It‘s ok. You can wait here.‘

So Delbert waited nervously on watch while Henry, with Paracelsus perched on his shoulder, walked through the gate, ‗Hello,‘ asked Henry, ‗beautiful day, isn‘t strode up to the door and knocked. it?‘ From behind the door they heard ‗I don‘t see what‘s so good about it,‘ scampering footsteps approach before a replied the donkey, ‗it‘s just like every small but ferocious voice bayed at them, other one, as far as I can see. We‘re all ‗What‘s the password? State your just wasting time until we die.‘ business or go away now!‘

‗That‘s very pessimistic,‘ said Henry, Doug stood upright and shouted up to the ‗what about the beauty around you? cat, ‗Charlie, the mistress is calling. We Don‘t those daffodils there inspire you?‘ have to go!‘

Paracelsus had some experience with dogs and knew what to say,. ‗Good dog, we ask that you get your mistress for us.

We have important business with her,

case that they immediately locked him up as a madman in the local asylum. Worse, The sound of little feet running away they put Paracelsus in a cage at an animal from the door implied that these words refuge and put Henry‘s sacred crystal in a had worked. Soon after the woman Henry vault with all other items found on his had seen at the cafe opened the door and person. To complicate things even stared at them both. At first her face was further, when Henry gave Lucia as a inscrutable but once she had the personal reference she recounted the opportunity to size up her visitors, she story of his disastrous last morning at burst into a resounding cackle. work to doctors running this establishment. All evidence, they ‗You good man. You found a friend concluded, pointed to a nervous already!‘ she exclaimed in the same animal language Henry was using. Then breakdown leading to a delusional she spotted Delbert outside the gate, personality. trying to look inconspicuous, and this It took Saskia days to find out what had made her roar, ‗Two! Hahahaha!‘ happened. Desperate, she contacted Jenny, who tried to get hold of Josef but Henry looked at her seriously and said, could not, since he was on a retreat. ‗We need to talk about this.‘ Between them they begged and pleaded The old woman chuckled and drew both with the doctors to let Henry go but to no of them inside. She proceeded to tell avail. As a last resort they threatened to Henry that she had been instructed by go to the local paper with his story. none other than the Grand Eagle himself Doctors are generally tolerant of the to visit that cafe and set up the circle of behaviour of distraught relatives but magic crystals, always leaving one rarely react well to blackmail, so behind if a man sat nearby. The eagle told unsurprisingly the two ladies found her that she would this way find the themselves thrown out when this ‗Special One‘, who would one day come suggestion was made. to liberate the beasts from their bondage Nevertheless, Jenny did get in touch with and save the world. She did this for months, mostly no one turned up, or the Boris, a journalist friend at the Daily jewel would go missing, until yesterday, Wire, and told him of Henry‘s story. He when Henry tried to return the crystal to took some notes but then promptly filed them away, thinking them no more than her. new age claptrap. He‘d only recently ‗What do you mean, tried to return it?‘ moved from covering minor traffic interjected Henry. offences to political corruption and had no wish to ignite the ire of his editor by ‗Look in your top left pocket, darling,‘ the old lady replied. This Henry did and even mentioning the matter. was astonished to find it nestled within.

Meanwhile, Henry found himself sharing She must have tucked it there when she a room with a young man who believed hugged him. that the internet was a spy network, that friend.‘

Boris was given carte blanche to help deliver a knockout punch. In sifting through files on earlier leads he stumbled upon the notes from Jenny‘s phone call.

It eerily detailed the exact circumstances they were in. Showing these notes to his editor he was given permission to run a story on how warnings were ignored and the whistleblower was incarcerated.

Henry was recast as an amateur geologist to give the piece a more worldly angle.

When published, the article caused a sensation. Scientists from many disciplines around the globe clamoured to meet this maligned genius and learn of his secret. There were many red faces in the government when they learned of Henry‘s current predicament. A very public apology, replete with mandatory handshaking photo opportunities, was hurriedly arranged.

As the truth emerged from beneath the journalistic embroidery, the fascination with his story only grew. Paracelsus was rescued, the crystal was returned and demonstrations were arranged for all to see. It caused a revolution in thinking. It was around this time that the Department For Animal Relations was set up, with Henry in charge and from that day onward, animal rights were taken seriously. Talks between human leaders and the key representatives of the Six Tribes of Fauna (bird, fish, insect, mammal, spider, reptile) resolved a great many issues, bringing a new sense of global responsibility to all concerned.

Henry and Paracelsus became national celebrities, famous for their speaking tours. Now a highly respected member of society, Henry was able to pay off his all mobile phones were mind reading mortgage and he and Saskia had two ‗This give you the power to speak with machines and that the government were healthy sons. Josef and Jenny both came animals. Now I know you are the one really aliens. Given the circumstances of to work for him while Delbert got a job since you find me so quick and bring his own imprisonment, Henry remained giving seaside rides to sick children. your friends too!‘ open minded. Needless to say, his Boris became the editor in chief at his Henry cradled the stone in the palm of his neighbour believed every word Henry newspaper. As for Lucia, shortly after hand, ‗What did the Grand Eagle mean Henry‘s story came out she was attacked said. about saving the world?‘ he asked. by a dog nobody in her neighbourhood Two weeks later, on the day predicted by had seen before. While in the hospital ‗He exaggerate a little, but only a little. the Grand Eagle, disaster struck. The recovering Henry heard of her plight and Animals see things we don‘t, they know earthquake measured 6.9 on the Richter paid a visit. He was quite annoyed. It was many weeks and months before disaster scale, several buildings collapsed, clearly a hate crime based on revenge and happens. Man needs to listen but they essential services were cut, three people he made a point of going on television take no notice of old woman like me. were killed, many more were injured. and in animal language pleaded for an Eagle tell me there earthquake in three Chaos reigned. Never had such a blow weeks time. You tell men in power. You been struck against the city and those in amnesty against humans. Lucia found this very touching and from that day on they believe.‘ charge were utterly unprepared for the was a changed person. She came to work But, of course, they didn‘t believe. Henry devastation. for Henry too and proved a highly presented himself to his local MP saying Jenny‘s journalist friend was assigned the effective member of staff. that an eagle had told an old lady to tell job of finding someone to blame for the him that disaster was coming, in very So that is how these things came to be. m slow response to this emergency. His specific detail. He was so intense, editor had more than one axe to grind David Bowden persistent and sincere in presenting his against the current state government, so Medlow Bath

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All contributors may choose how to have their entry credited, but will be required to offer a name and village/ town e.g. Jenny, Hazelbrook or a pseudonym and village/ town e.g. MoshPit, Hazelbrook.

Contributions will generally not be edited, save for a light spelling, grammar and punctuation check.

The publisher retains the right to refuse publication of any submission without explanation. Items deemed offensive or potentially offensive, or items deemed to be The ‘secret judge’ will be someone with a literary or writing propaganda will not be published. No correspondence will background or interest and will be revealed in the be entered into. following issue.

After publication The People’s Choice prize is $200.

With the establishment of other regional Narrator Other than the four prizes mentioned above, all magazines, a ‘best of the best’ will be published annually contributions are unpaid. The magazine is an opportunity showcasing the overall winners. Winners have the right to for writers and artists to gain exposure for their previously refuse permission for their submission to be included in unpublished works. this compilation. There will be no payment for inclusion in the annual compilation.

Winners’ names are published in the next issue and How to submit awarded their prizes then.

Copyright All contributors (writers and artists) retain full copyright in and ownership of their contributions.

Advertising Advertisers must reside in or service the region.

The cost of the magazine is subsidised by advertising.

Each page is available for sponsorship, and a maximum of one advertisement per page is allowed. The remaining portion of each page will be dedicated to content.

Advertisers are ‘first come first serve’—the sooner an advertiser reserves and pays for space, the closer to the front of the magazine their ad will appear.

In the downloadable PDF, epub and online versions, advertisers’ websites will be hyperlinked to their ads.

Opportunities for local artists Local artists are invited to submit images to appear on the cover. These will not be paid for.

Writing contributors may also submit an artwork (theirs or another regional resident’s) to accompany their submission when published. The publisher reserves the right to print the submission without the accompanying artwork.

Restrictions Contributions must be no more than 5,000 words each.

Upload your story, poem or essay in Word, .txt or other MS Word-compatible format via the Submit pages at www.narratormagazine.com.au You will be required to go through the Submit process for each individual submission.

Prizes Judged prizes will be awarded to the three entries (across all categories) as chosen by that quarter’s ‘secret judge’ as follows: 1st prize—$1,000 2nd prize—$500 3rd prize—$250 People’s Choice voting opens on release of each issue at

www.narratormagazine.com.au/ vote.php Voting closes one calendar month prior to release of next issue.

Only one entry per valid email address allowed. $200 will be awarded to the entry which receives the most votes.

Winners’ details will be published in the following issue and on the website at

www.narratormagazine.com.au