Narrator Magazine NSW/ACT Summer 2011

narrator MAGAZINE

NSW/ACT

Quarterly showcase of your region’s creative writing talent.

ISSN: 1839-7999 Print

ISSN: 1839-8006 Online

This issue featuring contributions from: Chris Broadribb, Harold Mally, Susan Adams, Peter Tonkin, David Stein, Joe Massingham and more ...

AUD $12.95

Summer 2011 Read part one of the world’s first bread crumb novel inside ....

Blue Mountains Spring 2011 Winners The Blue Mountains Spring 2011 issue was judged by Lis Bastian, CEO of Varuna, the Writer‘s House in Katoomba. Here are Lis‘ choices ...

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First Prize—$200 to Linda Yates for ‘Endings’ ‗A concise, poetic and evocative piece of writing, encapsulating universal experiences of family relationships, parenthood, death and regret.‘

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Second Prize—$100 to Alan Lucas for ‘Faustus’ ‗An elegant, tight, beautifully constructed poem - hinting at so much but allowing the reader to fill in the detail and interpret the metaphor.‘

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Third Prize—$50 to David Bowden for ‘The Man Who Talked to Animals’ ‗A well written and entertaining contemporary fairy tale addressing issues of workplace bullying, government inaction, journalism playing liberally with facts and animal rights, in a light hearted parable for the 21st Century.‘

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Highly Commended—Tony Dwyer for ‘Selling Green’ ‗A wittily bitter exploration of cruel twists of fate, written in a pacy style.‘

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Highly Commended—Samantha Miller for ‘Vide Grenier’ ‗An amusing and realistic reconstruction of a brief moment in time, with entertaining and believable dialogue.‘

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People’s Choice Winner—$50 to James Tingle for ‘The Facility’

Central Tablelands Spring 2011 Winners The Central Tablelands Spring 2011 issue was judged

by Jenny Barry from Bathurst‘s independent bookstore, BooksPlus. Here are Jenny‘s choices ...

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First Prize—$200 to Rebecca Wilson for her piece ‘Treasures’ ‗I found this a terrific piece of writing with a strong plotline with great suspense and surprise twists included in crucial stages of the story. The characterisations were beautifully drawn and their circumstances believable without any weaknesses in their development or the pacing of the story. The story had great atmosphere with vivid landscape description, immersing you completely within its surrounds. This was a standout story, beautifully written with great zest.‘

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Second Prize— $100 to JE Doherty for ‘Always the Children’ ‗A moving, heartfelt story. he life of an ambulance officer is sympathetically drawn and the unimaginable grief of dealing with the loss of a child is beautifully evoked.‘

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Third Prize—$50 to JE Doherty for ‘The Dancing Suit’

‗The characters of Robert and Beckett are strongly detailed to create a rich descriptive air of the period. A seemingly innocent and charming anti-hero soon becomes the reader‘s worst nightmare in a surprising twist in the tail story.‘

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People’s Choice Winner—$50 to Paul Phillips for ‘The Eyes Have It’

Bathurst‘s independent bookstore for more than 20 years.

Local ABC Centre with ABC, BBC & SBS DVDs & music.

Great range of fiction, crime, fantasy, history, biography and cooking books.

Extensive range of children‘s and young adult novels.

157 Howick St, Bathurst (02) 6331 5994 admin@booksplus.com.au

Proud recipient of the 2010 Australian Regional Independent Bookstore of the Year.

Short Stories 3 A Portrait of the Artist as a Real Estate Agent 6 The Deadly Game 9 Molly‘s Gift

Welcome to the First Edition of

Narrator MAGAZINE NSW/ACT

12 Plaster Angel

A few words from the publisher ...

14 The Tribunal

Thank you for your interest in Narrator Magazine, whoever you may be. You‘ve opened the cover and that‘s what counts.

We hope that over the coming quarters, word will spread and we will be able to bring you an even greater variety of the creative works of people from New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory—or ‗nuswhacked‘ as we‘ve affectionately come to think of it in this office!

21 Just Wait Until I Tell My Mother 23 A Crime By Any Other Name 24 Ned Kelly‘s Feast 26 Miss Bunny 31 The Happy Moon 32 Brushed 36 Rikki, Nikki and Connor Transmedia 44 Art and the Drug Addict‘s Dog

Poetry 6 Alice 7 The Game 8 On Waking 8 Pirates

The purpose behind Narrator Magazine is to provide a showcase for people‘s creative short works. When you‘re an emerging writer, it‘s hard to get your works out there to see what response you get. With Narrator, you can develop your writing skills, get published and perhaps begin to build up a following. Then when you‘ve worked out what readers do and don‘t like, you can look at publishing an

10 Bushfire Battlefield

And by doing it online, you can send a link to anyone, refer to it when entering other competitions, or submitting to other journals etc.

Here at MoshPit Publishing we are always on the lookout for original and interesting new writing to help us develop our Australian ebook and print-on-demand collection, so we can‘t wait to see what you‘ve got going on in your heads!

Enjoy these contributions, which have been secretly ‗guest judged‘ by SMH Good Weekend columnist and writer Mark Dapin, and we hope that if your work is not in this issue, it will be in an issue soon!

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

Cover: ‘Tram Graveyard, Sydney’ by Steve McLaren

10 She 11 Caterpillar‘s Crusade 13 Childhood Dream

Steve McLaren is a multi skilled artist, curator and mentor. He is currently Vice President at Tap Gallery, Darlinghurst, the oldest artist run initiative in Sydney (23 years).

Steve was a short listed finalist in the 2007 National Aust indigenous Reconciliation Art Award, 2007 and 2008 runner-up in the Australian Environmental Art Award and the Australian Ethical Art Award, and a finalist in both in 2009, as well as being the 2010 Winner of the Australian Ethical Art Award for Environmental Art with his work ‗The Murray River Gums‘. Steve‘s works are held in numerous collections in Australia as well as New York and Singapore.

18 Nightshift 20 Australian Stage 21 Cancer Loss 22 Nature‘s Tears 22 The Book

He has been selected to co-curate a show with Cherry Hood for the 2012 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and to expand the Mardi Gras to the country and the nation‘s capital with a show called ‗Wylde in the Country‘ featuring works from selected gay and lesbian artists and which is due to open at Goulburn‘s South Hill Gallery on 11 February 2012.

30 Come to Me 31 Scatter 31 The Happy Moon 43 Wine and Rose Petals 43 The Black Wind

anthology or a longer work, either through MoshPit Publishing or another publisher.

Steve‘s passion is changing to encompass photography and the cover photo represents one of the last images which will ever be taken of Sydney‘s Tram Graveyard, soon to be demolished to make way for luxury apartments. For more about Steve, friend him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/stevethebodymechanic

narrator

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

A Portrait of the Artist as a Real Estate Agent The porch of the weatherboard house creaked beneath Norbert‘s weight. His practised eye scrutinised the faded, peeling aqua paint, the gaps between the grubby window panes and the warped frames, and the spider webs festooning the wrought-iron work under the roof. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and summoned words of praise:

there, then you go home, to your house, unit, caravan, whatever.‘

‗All the charm of a bygone era combined with the convenience of inner-city boutique living,‘ he scribbled on his note pad. Then he gave the road his undivided attention. He made it back to the office without further incident and sat down at his computer to do the listing for the property.

said? Or did?‘

Norbert sighed. Why did Megan have to take everything so literally? But he soon forgot her quibbling as his fingers scrambled across the keyboard, struggling to keep up with the torrent of words welling up from the fount of his imagination.

Peter Tonkin, Lakemba, NSW impact on your interaction with other team members. Why don‘t you take some time off? You‘ve accrued almost four weeks—why don‘t you use it and, like, chillax?!‘ ‗I'll think about it,‘ was all Norbert said.

Norbert didn‘t want a holiday. He loved his work. It was varied and stimulating.

He got out and met all kinds of people ‗Rustic charm, ideal vehicle for market Megan stomped into the manager‘s office and saw all kinds of properties, each one entry, opportunity for first-time investor, presenting a unique challenge to his on high heels and in high dudgeon. realise your dream of home ownership ...‘ powers of description and persuasion. ‗It‘s sexual harassment and I won't put up ‗Sorry, what did you say?‘ asked the old He knocked off at half past five and went with it!‘ woman in the floral print dress, fiddling home. His mother had baked a steak and with her hearing aid.

Steve craned his head up over his kidney pie for dinner. Norbert sniffed the computer screen and his gaze followed ‗Nothing, I was just trying to think of the meaty aroma and looked up at the Megan‘s outstretched arm to where best way to describe your lovely house, cornice, the picture rail and the teardrop Norbert sat, his lips twitching. so as to make it most attractive to light fitting. They lent the dining room an potential buyers.‘ ‗No, of course not, why should you? As air of classical elegance that made it eminently liveable and ‗So what do you think it‘s worth?‘ In the middle of the night, three men burst desirable. He beamed as he took ‗In today‘s market, about 450.‘ into his hotel room. Norbert woke up just cherubically it all in. ‗450 what?‘ in time to smell the chloroform on the rag ‗Over my dead body!‘ ‗Thousand.‘ shoved into his face. When he came to, he snarled his mother. ‗Really? This old place? Fancy was sitting up, blindfolded and gagged, ‗What was that Mum?‘ that!‘ ‗You'll have to wait with his hands tied in front of him.

Norbert drove back to the office, until I‘m laid out cold rearranging the words in his head. in my grave before I‘ve made clear to everyone, this you try to sell this place! Now will you After mounting the kerb and running a company has a zero-tolerance attitude to pass me the dead horse—if you‘ve red light, he decided that he‘d better stop sexual harassment and, umm ... do you finished playing with it?‘ and write it down. mind telling me exactly what it was he

‗Did you say something?‘ said Megan. ‗Who—me?‘ ‗I thought you said something about a boutique.‘ ‗Oh yes, I was just thinking: ―boutique living‖. What does that evoke for you?‘ ‗You don't live in a boutique. You shop

Norbert squirted some tomato sauce onto his pie and handed the plastic bottle over. ‗He called me ―a renovator's dream‖.‘ Classical elegance. It would be good to ‗I see. Well of course that‘s totally see more of that. Maybe Steve was right. unacceptable, and I‘ll deal with it in Maybe he should take a holiday and get accordance with our harassment and away for a bit. He‘d saved enough money bullying policy. So, if I could just get you for a decent trip. He could go to Europe to fill in the form and give your account and see all those beautiful old buildings. of what happened, and then, while I sort It would be inspirational and uplifting. it out, why don‘t you take the rest of the London, Paris, Rome: unreal estate. Yes, day off?‘ he would go. ‗OK. Thanks, Steve.‘ When Megan had left, Steve called Norbert into his office. ‗Look Norbert, I think you've been working too hard, and it‘s starting to

The next morning he confirmed the dates of his leave with Steve. He visited a travel agency during his lunch break and booked flights and hotels. He broke the news to his mother over a post-prandial glass of sherry. She took it more stoically

Narrator MAGAZINE join us on Facebook at facebook.com/narratormagazine

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0449 611 076 sunergydesign@yahoo.com.au

facebook.com/sunergydesign than he could have hoped.

A week later he was standing before Buckingham Palace with his notebook and camera. After the Changing of the Guard, he went back to his hotel room, fired up his laptop and wrote:

charm and everything you expect from a vibrant city life!

Spiderman pyjamas and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, three men burst into his hotel room. Norbert woke up just in time to smell the chloroform on the rag shoved into his face. When he RENOVATOR'S DELIGHT! came to, he was sitting up, blindfolded A unique challenge for a renovator with and gagged, with his hands tied in front PRISTINE, PRIVATE AND WHISPER the drive and vision to restore this classic of him. He was in a car, travelling fast.

QUIET building to its former glory! Featuring an He could hear the roar of the engine and the occasional squeal of tyres. The car You will love the wonderfully relaxing innovative design with timeless appeal, slowed down, turned right and stopped. ambience of this quiet and spacious this distinctive property represents an He was dragged out into the cold night property! Instantly liveable with exciting opportunity to live/invest in a air and marched across cobblestones, his opportunities to enhance and create your most desirable location and offers bare feet slipping on the damp stones. He own personal style, there is nothing to breathtaking views of the Greek capital stubbed his toe when they went up some spend and everything to enjoy. With with myriad possibilities for gourmet steps. A door creaked and slammed plenty of character and light-filled open plan indoor/outdoor entertaining. behind them. Then they went down a rooms, you can easily lose yourself in The last stop on his European tour was flight of wooden stairs and through poetic rhapsody as this is not just your Moscow. He gazed at the Kremlin till its another door. The blindfold was ripped typical urban home—this is ‗Buckingham onion domes seemed to float in the sky, off. A spotlight dazzled him. He felt like Palace‘! while the words circled them like hawks, a rabbit, frozen in the hunter‘s sights.

In Paris, he watched the shadow of the buoyed aloft on the feverish thermals of A man‘s voice roared out of the darkness, Eiffel Tower creep like a giant sundial his imagination: just to the right of the light. ‗So you want along the Quai Branly. Then he wrote: FORGET THE COMMUTE! to own some valuable Russian real LIVE THE DREAM! estate? Well, we would like to help you Only a few properties enjoy such a Picture yourself waking up to spectacular privileged position and now this could be to do that! Unfortunately Kremlin is not views of the City of Light every morning! yours! Strategically located on Moscow's available, but you can have your own private corner of Lubyanka.‘ Located right in the pulsating heart of trendy Red Square, this soulful, charmParis, this unique all-steel structure filled home effortlessly blends traditional Harsh cruel laughter echoed around the features an innovative multi-level open- style with modern comfort. Offering room. Another voice croaked, ‗Do you plan design that adds to the light airy supreme convenience, it is located just know why they say Lubyanka is tallest feeling of this home. With 100+ years of moments from the metro, station and building in Moscow?‘ shops. Best of both worlds: old ‗Because from cellar you can see time character without the Siberia!‘ snarled another, and more maintenance! demoniac mirth erupted. Norbert didn‘t Norbert was pleased with his work get the joke. He had heard of the and wanted to share it with the Lubyanka, but he couldn't remember world. He uploaded the texts and what it was famous for. If he could only images to his Facebook page. A explain to these men that it was all an stimulating conversation with innocent misunderstanding and that he other netizens ensued. Momoko had a flight to catch the next day, surely sent a photograph of a replica of they would let him go. the Parthenon covered in neon, The first man barked, ‗Who are you and attached a haiku. Floyd referred him to the Featurist working for?‘ Manifesto and asked for his ‗I work for Real Deal Real Estate, but I'm comments. Meanwhile Barbarella on holiday at the moment.‘ wanted to know the asking price for the Kremlin. Norbert groaned. That answer did not satisfy them. They Hadn‘t she heard of poetic grilled him for hours, then threw him into licence? He couldn't be bothered an unfurnished room with white walls explaining the concept to some and no windows. There was no sound philistine. Instead, he just typed except a constant loud electric hum. It ‗100,000,000 roubles‘, thinking seemed to come from the bare light bulb that would discourage her. Then that never went off. It was impossible to he closed his laptop, put on his sleep. From time to time some disgusting In Athens, he climbed the Acropolis and heard the Muses sing:

swill was shoved through a flap in the door. Hours passed, maybe days. One thought connected him to the outside world, painful though it was: what would they be saying about him at the office? ***

‗Visitor. You have visitor.‘ Norbert followed the guard to the visitors‘ room, but saw nobody he recognised. A tall blonde woman with a bulky shoulder bag smiled at him and sat down at a long table. He sat down on a rickety wooden chair opposite her.

plead guilty but with extenuating circumstances, in which case there were good prospects for a non-custodial sentence and the soonest possible release from the somewhat less than salubrious conditions in which Norbert found himself. Norbert agreed to this stratagem.

In the meantime he tried to keep busy. He learnt a little Russian and began to take an interest in the real estate pages of the local newspapers that he came across.

Megan was saying, ‗Look Steve, I didn‘t ‗Mister Norbert?‘ want Norbert to get the sack. I‘ve got nothing against him; I just wanted him to ‗Yes, that's me.‘ stop bugging me with all that kinky ‗My name is Svetlana. I am also a writer, innuendo.‘ Three months later he faced the court. of sorts. I have brought you food and The judge found him guilty but took into ‗Honestly Megan, I didn‘t sack him, I just books.‘ consideration the fact that no money had told him to go and get some counselling. ‗For me? Why?‘ changed hands and gave him a suspended And to take a break if he thought that sentence. Pale and gaunt, Norbert stepped would help, which in the end he agreed to ‗I admire your work, as do others. With out into the feeble spring do. He was supposed to be back at sunshine and a barrage of work today. I‘ve rung his mother, Meanwhile Norbert‘s writing had questions from the but she hasn‘t heard from him assembled in since the middle of last week.‘ provoked lively discussion in literary journalists front of the courthouse. He ‗Gee, maybe you should call the circles. He had been hailed as the stood there, speechless with police.‘ bewilderment, until pioneer of a new style called ‗estate Svetlana grabbed his arm ‗Actually, they rang about half an guided him to a hour ago and asked if he worked realism‘. Rumours of his detention and waiting taxi. here. When I said he did, they said had gained traction after being The next day he was at a not to worry, they were looking into it.‘ officially denied. PEN and Amnesty cocktail party in London, ‗What‘s that supposed to mean?‘ ‗Yeah, I thought it was a bit odd.‘

being lionised by the literati. But amid the rapier wit and the ambient groove, the shouts of the guards still echoed in his ears and blinding lights glared from his martini. He excused himself and retreated to the rest room to wrestle with your permission, I would like to translate his demons. From that titanic struggle some of your poems into Russian.‘ emerged the first draft of what most critics now consider his finest work: ‗Really? Sure, I mean, that‘s great! But Lubyanka. what‘s going to happen to me?‘

had taken up his case, and three Nobel Prize winners had signed a letter to the President of Russia, calling for his release.

Meanwhile Norbert‘s writing had provoked lively discussion in literary circles. He had been hailed as the pioneer of a new style called ‗estate realism‘. Rumours of his detention had gained traction after being officially denied. PEN and Amnesty had taken up his case, and three Nobel Prize winners had signed a letter to the President of Russia, calling for his release.

Meanwhile the FSB continued to interrogate him using sleep deprivation and truth serum, but finally concluded that he wasn‘t a threat to national security and transferred him to a prison for common criminals. It too was cold and spartan, what little food he received was inedible, and the guards were brutal. But at least they let him sleep at night and go out into the courtyard for a couple of hours each day.

‗Have courage! We are working for your release. We will find a good lawyer for you.‘

OWN A PIECE OF HISTORY!

This prestige property has been meticulously maintained and is ideal for The visit was soon over, but Norbert felt the security-conscious owner-occupier or more optimistic and eagerly devoured the the prudent investor looking for a lowmaintenance asset. Extremely private, it cheese, sausage and rye bread that blends cleverly configured layouts and Svetlana had brought him. Three days storage solutions with quality finishes later a lawyer did come and discuss the and a heritage facade. Steeped in history charges against Norbert. The and oozing character, this property will prosecution‘s case against Norbert was not stay on the market long, so act fast! m flawed and the evidence largely circumstantial. However, contesting it would prolong the proceedings, during One day a guard growled something at Peter Tonkin him. Vassiley, his cellmate, translated for which time Norbert would have to remain Lakemba, NSW in prison. Sergei recommended that he him.

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John Ross Blackheath, NSW

The Deadly Game He was still in the house. I could not see him. I could not hear him, but I just knew he was still there. It was like some sixth sense. Call it a feeling in my gut or call it whatever you like but it had saved me a number of times before.

I stood just behind my bedroom door, straining all my senses, trying to pick up the slightest noise or vibration. Was he just outside the door in the hallway, or had he retreated further into the house?

through the door. I could not wait any longer. So taking a deep breath, and keeping as low as possible I jumped out into the hallway. There were only two ways that I could face first, either left or right. I chose right as that way the hallway led deeper into the house.

Nothing. The hallway was empty. I swung around as fast as I could but the other way was also empty. So far, so good.

Then I heard it. Just a slight scratching sound that came from behind the breakfast bar. I strained my ears but the sound was gone. Had I really heard it, or were my nerves getting the better of me?

Then it came again, slightly louder this time. He must be crouched down behind the bar. It was only about waist high and extended halfway across, dividing the two areas.

Had he heard me enter the room? Was he waiting for me to make a move or was he The pistol was cold and heavy in my I again waited to see if I could hear going to suddenly leap up and fire hoping right hand. I adjusted my grip and took anything. The crash of a garbage tin lid in to catch me off guard? the laneway beside the house made me up more pressure on the trigger. jump and half turn towards it before I I could not remain where I was. I had to I glanced back at the bed where I had make a move. I really only had two realised what it was. been asleep just moments before. The options, retreat or attack. What to do? evidence of his two shots was plainly Nothing! So I began to slowly make my visible as dark marks on the whiteness of way down the hall towards the kitchen.

Before I realised that I had made a my pillow. I had been very lucky. They Trying to remember my training from all decision I was in motion. Three quick had missed my head by mere millimetres those years ago I moved my weapon from steps and I was around the end of the as I had thrown myself sideways at the side to side and kept it extended, gripped breakfast bar. There was a blur of last moment. Being a light sleeper had in both hands, in front of me. I knew that movement and I fired. It was the cat. I saved me once before. He was good ten years of retirement and soft living had had shot my Persian cat. though, and so he should be, as I had slowed me down but I still felt the Cursing myself for having given away trained him myself. I had not heard his adrenalin pumping and the same old my position I was about to turn around approach until it was almost too late. In excitement coursing through me. when I heard the door of the pantry my younger days I would have been Pausing just outside the open entrance behind me crash open. aware of his presence before he had even into the kitchen, I again tried to listen to entered the room.

I knew I would be too slow and that it see if I could detect any movement inside was hopeless but began to turn anyway. I I stood as still as possible for what or even the sound of his breathing. was not more than half way around when seemed like an eternity. No sound except Hearing nothing I stepped inside. It was the shot hit me full in the back. for the creaking of the house as the sun only a small kitchen with a breakfast bar rose further and warmed the tiles on the He laughed and said, ‗I got you good that that opened onto a family living area. roof. time, Grandad.‘ Then he fired his water There was no one there. pistol at me again. m There was no choice; I had to go out

Alice When last I saw her She was garbed in arid brown Parched clay below the fissured skin Dark veins describing where the lifeblood ran Across her dried up body long ago No plants to decorate or soften She was dying Drought can do this

Janet Ryan Petersham, NSW

And now today She wears a gown of shimmering green Displays sly glimpses of red flesh beneath Bright silver streams cascade along Slaking the thirsty earth on either side Wild flowers flaunt as sequins to her dress She is arisen Flood can do this m

James Craib Wentworth Falls, NSW

The Game Now look, I don‘t want to monopolise your time, And it‘s true that my words are often in a scrabble.

Ok ... I got a bit tiddly; winking at all the girls,

Sometimes, I haven‘t got a clue; do not believe all the babble— I come out with, and really there‘s no need to check, mate.

This is not just a trivial pursuit; I‘m deadly serious about junk too, I‘m prone to the domino effect, a house of cards and fate ...

Decrees I slip down ladders and climb up snakes, try kung fu That I learnt from the Chinese; chequered career though it may be, Perhaps I don‘t need to pass—go on, tell me what you reckon.

Don‘t be cryptic, a cross word won‘t upset this baby, My ace of spades has been trumped, a new deck on …

The table, but I‘m snookered; the balls won‘t drop.

I‘d jump through hoops my sweet croquet … or is it coquette?

When you get to the bottom of the helter skelter—climb to the top.

Life is a slippery dip ride, a see-saw—what‘s the etiquette?

Fifteen love and it‘s your serve; I‘ll just putt for par, My last bowl was a toucher, it‘s so good to kiss the jack.

Nothing like a bullseye and a fresh drink from the bar, And I haven‘t lost my marbles, they‘re rolling ‗round in back.

What‘s the game we‘re playing—Pokémon or yahtzee?

It‘s a bit like playing twister, with your sister, on the carpet.

Spin the bottle or tic tac toe, Truth or Dare? And lastly ...

Backgammon or Baccarat, I‘ll try to bridge—or I‘ll forfeit. m

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Ruth Withers Uarbry, NSW

On Waking You came and sat beside me; You touched my face and warmed me; You told me that you loved me; You embraced me and you healed me.

Then I awoke.

I will never sit beside you; I will never feel your touch; I‘ll not hear a loving word from you; And I will not be healed.

Why must I awake? m

Niki Read Lawson, NSW

Pirates He‘d been popping pirates off the horizon for twenty-four hours from the 12th floor flat of a beach fronted friend waiting for the rain to stop his mum in a sleep deprived stupor tossing words in the sheets, astir the sun came out as if to mock them kindly of all their fears and they walked right across the sand to the sea a small boy with his pop-gun tucked into the elastic of his pants an answer to a never-ending question ‗should I be afraid?‘ she stuffs him into his wetsuit and he runs down to greet the waves, apprehensive and eager he runs at the water‘s edge, along the wings of the waves pendulum running punching at the waves, hands clenched, toes flicking up sand in arcs of light she stands still arms folded, thawing it‘s all there, the beauty of it she speaks aloud ‗it‘s a beautiful day‘ the words sound empty and she knows they‘re not they ask her; do you ever run just for the sake of running try it, down on the beach with a small boy take your hands out of your pocket and your eyes off the surface of the waves made more liquid by the silvery sun and run all the while a three masted ship full sail moving slowly north over the horizon. m

Sam Miller, Faulconbridge, NSW

Molly’s Gift

My name is Molly Davies and when I thought was going to be so exciting. If it The time line is all wrong, she insists. was a young child, I was taken by dogs— was anybody we really knew she‘d have There wasn‘t time for me to crawl there. known they were coming and just called Nobody came past her at the washing scared the bejesus out of my mother. line. She certainly doesn‘t think Max was out to them to go around the back.

This is how she tells it. strong enough to carry me. So there I As soon as she opens the door she sees I was a happy little baby who would just am—a child of mystery. there is nobody there. She swears she saw sit on the floor and play with blocks and them through the fly screen. Then, when So we come to my fifteenth birthday teddies and things. ‗No trouble,‘ she says she turns around to talk to me—I‘m when I discovered my gift. with a dopey look. My dad rolls his eyes gone!

I had some girlfriends around. We ate at this point.

Well, all hell breaks loose at this point. cake, sang along to CDs and talked about So there I was sitting on my rug gurgling This is where Dad starts to look a bit boys at school and boys in bands. When to myself, when Mum went out the back sheepish as he missed most of the action. it was time to go, Sui Lin was really to hang out some washing.

Mum is calling out looking under the upset as she couldn‘t find her new iPod furniture, checking all the rooms and and her parents would be so mad at her if We have a pretty normal type suburban even looking in places I couldn‘t possibly she lost it.

Aussie house. It‘s the same shape as many others I have seen, as if somebody, have got into. Mum loves telling me this, We all looked through the house, but she always maintains it‘s the scariest somewhere decided that is how a house especially my room and the garden where thing ever, to not know where your child should look this decade. It has a front we had done most of our socialising. door opening onto a living area, open has gone. plan around the corner to the Just before Sui Lin‘s parents teeny tiny kitchen. There is a were due to arrive, I heard sliding door nearly opposite the Well, all hell breaks loose at this someone suggest that we look large front window, so if the point. This is where Dad starts to look down the back of my curtains are open, or in the sunlounge in the sunroom. So a bit sheepish as he missed most of I rushed off to check and sure wash, you can see right through. You can take a circuit enough, it was there. the action. through the kitchen, the laundry Sui Lin was so happy and and back to the living area wanted to know how I again. Then if you turn around you go Next she calls around to the neighbours‘ thought to look there. She had only sat down a corridor to find your three and gets Mrs Johnson involved. They are there for a second to drink some squash bedrooms and bathroom. I have been in looking in the all the same places they while we were mucking around outside. I so many houses like this all over the have already looked when Mrs J goes told her someone had suggested it, but we country. If you woke up in the night, you into the garden and calls Max. When he couldn‘t work out who it was. could always find the bathroom in the comes trotting over to greet her, she asks dark.

Later that night, as I snuggled up on my him ‗Where‘s Molly?‖ Max just goes and lies down at the front of his kennel. Mum bed with my whippet Rudi, I heard her So, I‘m in the little area off the kitchen, says he‘s a useless hound, but Mrs J, she say, ‗That was a fun party; can we do it Mum‘s out the back and Dad‘s ... well, comes up to Max and crouches down and every year?‘ who knows where he is … when the doorbell rings.

when she looks past him, she can see me in the kennel holding a piece of fabric.

So, that is my gift. I hear dogs. Nobody else in my family does this and they all Max starts barking at the door. Max was think I‘m bonkers, but not in a bad way. I our lovely hound dog. He was really very After mum and Mrs J have settled down and enjoyed a restorative cup of tea they don‘t have the kind of parents who will pretty for a boy with plenty of eyeliner rush me off to the psych office or the around his big brown eyes. Mum named begin to wonder how I got there and where the piece of fabric came from. The counsellor for hearing dogs. After all, him after Max Factor, but Dad always fabric was like a silk handkerchief in the they reckon in every other regard I‘m said he was named after Max Gillies. quite normal, even rather useful. most amazing colour of green. The It‘s late summer and the front door is weirdest thing was that it was I only wish I had known about the gift a open with the screen door closed for flies, embroidered MD for my name. To this little earlier. I would have loved to have but nobody ever could decide if the day Mum is still speculating. It‘s not as if asked Max about the day we had a visit screen door was locked that day. Mum I could remember at all. from my Fairy Dogmother. m comes tearing through from the back yard to get the door. I don‘t know who she

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Joe Massingham Chisolm, ACT

Bushfire Battlefield

At first just a haze on the horizon as if some stockman was driving a mob of cattle home.

Then the rumbling thunder of the guns, the army in the sky, the sappers tunnelling through clouds in their sun coloured disguise.

The echoing hooves of Hell‘s cavalry, with molten gold breastplates shining, starting up scarlet clouds of dust.

Leaping and slashing, flickering swords routing all in their path leaving behind only scorched earth and rivers full of heaven‘s blood.

Distorted shapes and despairing residents, ill-prepared, ill-equipped defenders of blackened skeletons crucified along the skyline, Acrid smoke in one‘s nostrils, emptiness in what‘s left of life. m

Allison Morris Downer, ACT

She I know that when the years are draped around her she will shear off her ocean of hair, dark and sweet as molasses, or her perfume.

A vision of seduction preserved, she will sip scotch (neat, she‘ll say with a wink, a touch of the hand) and slyly, sidelong, whisper odd snippets, non-sequiturs and unsettling propositions to uncertain young men.

She will suck on her dark chocolate laughter and watch as they sidle away politely, the punch-lines of her little joke.

I will laugh with her later, impressed by her bravado, the carelessness of children, or nudists, because I will always fear the laughter of strangers. m

Cathy Tanaka Blackheath, NSW

Caterpillar’s Crusade

I've come to understand of late How caterpillars navigate: With down right course and sense of candor, And just a touch of mere meander, They plot their course from shrub to bush From end to end they seem to push, Each prods the comrade next in line While pushed as hard by one behind, In single file, from first to latter, A fuzzy, rippling piece of tatter.

In Indian file their ranks extended, From curb to curb as first intended, With tandem form so well deployed, They could do nothing to avoid The car with growl malevolent Announcing timely mal-intent There was no time to run for cover Or offer aid to one another And on the brave, besplattered dead Were epitaphs of Dunlop tread.

Now, a caterpillar's walk perceived Is more than odd, I must concede; Hindmost parts with speed propel But front and middle do not well Keep pace, and so with consequence (It seems such blatant common sense), To arch the back and then lie straight, And continue this ungainly gait, Until the journey's reached its end; Its wrinkled body‘s bound to bend.

The cry went up, a silent shout, Felt more within than heard without: ‗Hey, Joe's been hit! And Marty too!

And over there—can that be Hugh?!

So many mates that devil slew— Come, there's nothing now that we can do!!‘ And with no mind for devastation Or indeed, resuscitation, They rearranged and consummated That at outset contemplated.

Now one fine day I did behold This caterpillars‘ legend told, Full garden-wide to old and young In colloquial larvae mother tongue; Of derring-do so fraught with danger Between the hawthorn and hydrangea The darkest tale of feared expanse (It's beyond pre-pupae cognisance To understand a thoroughfare); Just who would risk the perils there?

So when the legend‘s now retold, In glory-glow of deeds so bold, Wide-eyed larvae thrill to hear Of how that monster hovered near, And when by evil overtaken All forged ahead, resolve unshaken; Then voices praise the glorious dead, And none will weep or hang a head, For all hold dear with admiration, That light of lights: determination. m

That fateful day the vanguards came To firm the line and fix the aim, And in their wake, the surging cluster, The eager throng; it pressed to muster.

Indeed it was a grand event When from the shadows forth they went, And each took hold of the behind Of the fellow next in line, With rumba rhythm at half pace They ventured out across the waste.

Cathy wrote this poem after watching caterpillars on a mid-summer‘s day

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

David Stein Dubbo, NSW

Plaster Angel I never believed in angels. Not until I met Carissa. She was standing on the footbridge that led over the freeway into town. She seemed to watch me from the moment I set foot on the bridge. As I drew nearer I saw how expressionless she was. How lifeless. Like an amazing toy whose batteries had become flattened.

When I was within speaking distance, she gave a half smile from beneath the curly fringe that dangled impracticably before her eyes, and she seemed to spark back to life again. ‗Are you smart?‘ she said. ‗You look smart. I need help with maths.‘ I'd seen her at school before. She was a year or so below me and we had never spoken. I never saw her speaking to anyone much.

I hated maths, but I said, ‗Sure. I'll help you out.‘ We arranged to meet the next day at her house on the outskirts of town. It was big. One of those old homesteads with the verandas that surround three sides of the building, but internally, it had been brutally divided into two. Carissa told me that another family lived in the other half of the house, but they never came outside. She thought they were serial killers. ‗The house is quiet,‘ I said.

I hate church. It'd take more than sermons doesn't understand anything about it. Or and wishful thinking to fill the void in about me. I‘m not afraid of dying, but when I go, I‘ll probably want to go me.' quickly.‘ She never got around to pulling her maths books out. Instead, she showed me her Carissa told me that she was all that music collection—thirty or so CDs of remained of her mother‘s brief, horrible light rock. A couple of Christian bands. first marriage. Her father lived in a flat in I‘m not sure why I expected something the centre of town, but never ventured heavier. The denim jacket with the any further than the small supermarket a obscure patches, perhaps. Beneath it she block away. And the pub on the adjacent wore a grey singlet and black leggings corner. that hugged her contours. It was her eyes ‗Do you visit him?‘ that drew me in, though, hiding behind those too-long locks. Especially when we ‗Sometimes. I knock quietly. If he hears sat by the river, with the bright autumn me, he‘s probably not drunk. Otherwise I sunlight illuminating every colour in her just leave him alone.‘ Late one night I was awakened by a tap at my window. I raised the curtain to see her huddled in her denim jacket, peering through her hair. I quietly opened the window for her to slide in, but she asked me to go for a walk with her instead. ‗I can‘t sleep.

Hope you irises. Blue. Green. Brown. Yellow. The only thing that threatened to spoil the image was the sight of my reflection, with its nose fish-lensed into a bulbous eyesore. To stop her from looking at me, I leaned in to kiss her.

When our lips finally parted she said, ‗The olds are at church. They're looking ‗Some people are afraid of dying.' for something to fill the void inside them.‘ She picked up a plaster statue of ‗Most people, probably.‘ Mary from the mantel above the ‗I'm bulimic. My mum thinks it‘s my way fireplace. ‗Look how lifeless she is. God, of committing suicide. Really slowly. She

don‘t mind.‘ It was so cold that I wore my ugg boots and footy scarf. It was the first time I had taken them out of the house since I got them. I didn‘t know where we were going, but she hardly spoke, and something told me not to complain about the cold or my tiredness.

Half an hour later, we were on the footbridge over the freeway. A few, sparse head lights flashed beneath us. The wind bit through my jacket, and even my

toes stung from the cold. Carissa faced the wind with squinting eyes, her locks swept back from her forehead. It was more prominent than I had realised.

I took my scarf and tried to wrap it around her neck, but she fought it from me and threw it. The wind carried it away and it caught on a post a few metres downwind. I raced to collect it before it ‗Remember when we first met?‘ she said. vanished in the darkness and when I She had to say it twice for me to hear her turned back to Carissa, she was standing over the wind. on the hand railing, legs trembling like those of a new born foal. She looked over ‗Of course I do. It was only a couple of her shoulder at me and almost lost her months ago. On this bridge. I never balance. For a moment her legs expected to meet someone like you.' stabilised, and she stood as motionless as ‗Like me? Who do you think I am?‘ I that statue of Mary. She looked at me and could barely distinguish the words that her plaster eyes seemed to say goodbye. escaped her mouth, it was trembling so Then she fell. much from the cold.

I saw a pair of elegant dove like wings magically unfold from her back, lifting her into the air. She smiled down at me, with a look of satisfaction as though her mission on this earth had been completed.

I searched inside me to find the lesson she had imparted. I knew it was there, somewhere in that void inside me. A void that I had never even noticed before. It had to be there. It had to.

Tyres squealed below. m David Stein Dubbo, NSW

Cheryl Ianoco Blackheath, NSW

Childhood Dream Cootamundra, my home town, My childhood memories still abound ...

My family life was full of love, Hand down from God above ...

Precious times, with childhood dreams, Of rolling hills and flowing streams ...

Now that life seems far away, But the memories still stay ...

Riding bikes, and climbing hills, Enjoying life, with all its thrills ...

Now and then I wander back, Still looking for those things I lack ...

Dancing, music, being free, Laughing, crying, finding me ...

Looking for my childhood dreams, For nothing now is what it seems ...

Mother, Father, family and friends, Hoping life will never end ...

My children now are growing tall, They turn to me, and ask me all ...

Memories full of colour too, Blossoms pink, and sky so blue ...

I hope their childhood dreams come true, For them there's still so much to do ...

Summers hot and winters cold, The wattle's yellow, bright and bold ...

Hang onto your childhood dreams, Your memories of flowing streams ...

Alas, my childhood now has gone, But memories always linger on ...

Memories of life, love and more, Go live your dreams, open life‘s door ... m

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Chris Broadribb Blaxcell, NSW

The Tribunal Part 1: The Portal

white circle painted on the floor. The woman looked nervous, but excited.

There was only one way to find out what it was like. Zyrin went over to the booth Zyrin stared at the teleportation portal. It and bought a ticket using his corporate didn‘t look very impressive: it was a ‗Can‘t believe we‘re doing this,‘ her credit card. His editor might cringe at the large, grey, rectangular box with husband muttered. expense, but a story like that would indicator lights and an LED screen. He attract new readers. Many reporters had The door slid closed and the screen slid the door open. There were circuit written about the device, but as far as he showed ‗IN USE‘. Indicator lights boards and wiring covering every wall, flashed on and off three times. There was knew, none had actually tried it. The hinting at the complex science behind it. no sound. After a few minutes, the screen attendant stamped his hand. He stepped inside the portal and the door A sign nearby read: ‗This teleportation displayed ‗READY‘. device has been used by the Australian automatically slid shut.

Zyrin sat down on a bench nearby and Space Exploration Program for the last waited. Many people walked past. Some ‗Stand still in the middle of the circle,‘ a ten years. It is routinely used to send recorded voice said. ‗Scanning is about to paused to look at the portal or read the scientists to the Microbial Research sign, but nobody bought tickets. Finally, commence.‘ Centre on Mars.‘ A 3D video showed a the device beeped and the screen changed space-suited scientist stepping inside and A screen on the wall lit up, showing to ‗IN USE‘ again. Then the door slid closing the door. The lights flashed another box-like portal in a large, bare open and the middle-aged couple briefly and the door re-opened to show white room, presumably on the emerged, beaming. that the scientist was gone. That was it.

International Space Station. There was no No footage of the research centre or the Zyrin went over to them. ‗Zyrin, blogger other visual clue that anything was happening. However, a faint humming scientist returning. for Wired In. What was it like?‘ noise emanated from the Zryin went over to the information booth, which was Zyrin had been studying them, trying circuits on the walls. staffed by a gangly, pimplyglint of silver caught to find some clue as to what had hap- AZyrin‘s faced boy who looked about 15 eye. It was a watch years old. pened to them, but they looked and lying outside of the circle. It looked expensive. Hadn‘t ‗How does it work?‘ Zyrin said. sounded exactly the same as they had the woman had one just like Yet she‘d still been ‗A return ticket is 5000 credits. before. The woman smiled at him and it? wearing it when she left. He You can go to the International reached down and picked it Space Station and stay half an they walked away, hand in hand. hour. You can‘t go to Mars. It‘s up. closed to the public,‘ the kid ‗Synchronisation error,‘ the recited in a bored tone. ‗Amazing!‘ the woman said. ‗The voice said. ‗Please stand still in the station‘s so big—I couldn‘t believe it. ‗But how does it work from a technical middle of the circle. Restarting scan.‘ And the view! The Earth looks like a point of view?‘ As a journalist, Zyrin ‗Stop! I‘ve changed my mind. Let me giant globe.‘ needed to know the facts. out.‘ Zyrin tugged at the door. It didn‘t ‗Quite remarkable,‘ her husband budge. He pounded on it and shouted, The kid shrugged. ‗I just sell tickets.‘ mumbled. ‗Never seen anything like it.‘ ‗Help!‘ ‗Ever tried it yourself?‘ ‗What did the teleportation feel like?‘ ‗Scanning complete. Deconstruction ‗Nah, you have to be over 18.‘ Zyrin said. commencing,‘ the voice said.

A middle-aged couple approached, holding hands.

‗Do you know, I don‘t even remember it,‘ Zryin grabbed the nearest bundle of wires the woman said. ‗One moment we were and pulled. They came loose with a here and the next, we were there.‘ shower of sparks. ‗Didn‘t feel a thing,‘ the man said. ‗Hardware error X2198B,‘ the voice said. ‗Unable to process command. Aborting.‘ Zyrin had been studying them, trying to find some clue as to what had happened The humming died away and everything to them, but they looked and sounded was silent. Zyrin was reaching for the exactly the same as they had before. The door again when movement on the wall woman smiled at him and they walked screen caught his eye. The door to the away, hand in hand.

‗Two tickets, please,‘ the woman said.

Judging from her expensive clothes, jewellery and watch, the price wouldn‘t be of concern to her. The attendant stamped her and her husband‘s hands with a holographic ASEP logo. They entered the portal and stood inside a

space station portal had slid open.

Someone stepped out—himself! An identical clone, wearing similar clothes and dangling a silver watch from its hand. Zyrin watched in horror as it walked across the room.

The door to Zryin‘s portal slid open and he found himself face to face with two serious-looking men in dark suits. The ASEP logo was embroidered on their jackets. ‗What‘s going on here?‘ one of them said. ‗Look,‘ Zyrin gabbled, pointing at the wall screen. The clone had stepped out of sight. ‗It was me—it created me—but it‘s not me—‘ ‗Did you vandalise this device?‘ The ASEP agent looked at the dangling wires. ‗It wouldn‘t stop—it wouldn‘t let me out—‘ ‗Damaging government property is a serious offence. Come with us.‘ The two agents grabbed Zyrin‘s arms and dragged him out, ignoring his protests.

They hustled him towards a car waiting at the kerb. He struggled futilely, still trying to understand what had happened.

Part 2: The Right to Life Tribunal ‗The tribunal is now in session,‘ a robed attendant said.

Zyrin stood on one of a number of white pillars rising from the floor of an enormous, domed chamber. His lawyer (actually, Wired In‘s) stood on a pillar near him fiddling with her portable computer. An ASEP lawyer glared at him from across the chamber. Three judges sat in chairs on the tallest pillars in the middle, rotating slowly as a group. Only the head judge looked old enough to be respectable. The other two looked like they were barely out of high school. They all wore dull grey robes.

The public gallery was empty apart from a cluster of ASEP executives in expensive-looking suits. Nobody from Wired In had turned up.

The head judge said, ‗Counsel for the Australian Space Exploration Program,

please state your case.‘ Her shrill voice technology to scan a user‘s DNA and echoed around the chamber. Her tanned, encode it in digital form.‘ lined face bore an inscrutable expression.

Zryin glanced around the chamber. The The ASEP lawyer‘s pillar slowly rose to ASEP executives were studying the the same level as the judges‘. diagram intently, as if somehow they ‗Kolmogorov, representing ASEP, your could understand it all. honours. The facts are as follows: on day ‗The data is transmitted through space 154 of this year, the person of interest, using Speed of Light Transfer Protocol— Zyrin, while in Sydney, Australia, SOLTP. It‘s not literally at the speed of purchased a ticket for the device known light but it‘s close—‘ as the ‗portal‘, currently being used to access the International Space Station …‘ ‗We‘ve all heard of it. Move along,‘ the youngest judge said impatiently. He Zyrin glanced at Tereda. She was didn‘t look much like a judge. He had studying her computer screen intently and green and blue tufted hair and a seahorse didn‘t appear to be paying attention. tattoo on his cheek.

Kolmogorov continued. ‗Due to Zyrin‘s ‗The receiving device reconstructs the wilful vandalism of the device—‘ user and their clothing and belongings ‗I object,‘ Tereda said, her pillar rising using atomic matter stored in a tank suddenly. Evidently, she had been under the floor. The process is listening after all. ‗The alleged vandalism commercially classified, so I can‘t is a matter for a criminal court to decide. provide any further details.‘ y client has not been charged with, or Tereda said, ‗And what happens to the convicted of, this offence.‘ Her pillar user in the transmitting device?‘ sank again. ‗The cellular material is no longer ‗Upheld,‘ the head judge said. needed, so it‘s deconstructed and stored ‗Due to a technical malfunction—‘ in the tank there for future use.‘ Kolmogorov said, glaring at Tereda, ‗— ‗That‘s murder!‘ Zyrin shouted. ‗You‘re the process was not completed and not teleporting people, you‘re killing extraneous genetic and other material them!‘ remained in the device. Two ASEP security guards later discovered it.‘ ‗You must not address the tribunal except through your lawyer,‘ the head judge said Zyrin realised, with a shock, what he impassively. ‗This is your second meant by ‗extraneous genetic material‘. warning.‘ ‗You can‘t call me that! I‘m a person!‘ Tereda spoke again. ‗From the ‗Please refrain from addressing the information you‘ve given us, counsel, it tribunal directly,‘ the head judge said. appears this is a replication device rather ‗All comments must be directed through than a teleportation device. Is that your lawyer.‘ correct?‘ Tereda‘s pillar slowly rose again. ‗Could ‗You could say that,‘ Kolmogorov you explain the teleportation process to admitted. ‗It is scientifically impossible, the tribunal?‘ at this time, to transmit physical matter Kolmogorov pressed a button on his through space and recreate it. Therefore, computer. The circular wall around the the device transmits only data.‘ chamber lit up with a diagram: numerous ‗Yet ASEP calls it ‗teleportation‘ in its boxes and lines annotated with publicity material. A sign near the device mathematical formulae and acronyms. on Earth reads: ―This teleportation device Zyrin stared at it in bewilderment. has been used by the Australian Space ‗This box represents the device on Earth,‘ Exploration Program for the last ten years Kolmogorov said, as a red dot appeared …‖.‘ on the screen. ‗And this is the device on ‗I object, your honours,‘ Kolmogorov the International Space Station. The said. ‗It‘s not the tribunal‘s responsibility transmitting device uses proprietary to consider matters of misleading

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advertising. Counsel should take up that complaint in the relevant court.‘ ‗Upheld,‘ the head judge said.

Do they understand how the device works? Do they give their informed consent?‘

‗The information is available on the Tereda studied the notes on her computer, ASEP website.‘ Kolmogorov touched a looking flustered. ‗My client informs me button on his computer and the website that he became suspicious when he appeared on the wall screen, with its discovered an object inside the device spaceship logo and ‗Reaching for the that had belonged to the last user. It Stars‘ slogan. He navigated his way appears to have been replicated but not through various icons and links until he deconstructed. Could you explain how reached a page labelled ‗Technical that occurred?‘ Documentation‘ then selected ‗Portal Device B783X5c version 522‘ from a list. ‗I believe that was due to an unrelated technical problem. That will be subject to A page appeared with links to 128 documents with titles like ‗Extra-cellular a separate investigation.‘ matter analysis by degenerative An ASEP executive slowly rose on his hydrocarbon spectrography‘. pillar in the public gallery. ‗Your honours, we developed the portal fifteen Tereda said, ‗Your honours, I submit that years ago, and it has saved us significant the average member of the public would time and money. We can send a scientist not find, read or understand these to the research centre on Mars in a matter complex technical documents.‘ of minutes whereas it would take months ‗The information is available,‘ by spaceship.‘ Kolmogorov said stonily. ‗I also submit ‗But you‘re not sending them. That‘s the point,‘ Zryin muttered.

The head judge said, ‗Why is he not present at the tribunal?‘ The ASEP executive who had spoken before rose on his pillar again. ‗Your honours, ASEP does not dispute his right to life. Our dispute is only with the person of interest here.‘ Kolmogorov said, ‗Your honours, I submit that Zyrin has no cause for complaint. By purchasing a ticket, he agreed to be transferred to the International Space Station, and there he is.‘ ‗No I‘m not!‘ Zyrin said. ‗He agreed to the terms and conditions of the device. They are written in microprint on the ASEP stamp on his hand.‘ Zyrin stared at his hand in horror. He had been signing his own death warrant by allowing the attendant to stamp him.

that it‘s common sense that any type of ‗teleportation‘ would involve cellular deconstruction and reconstruction. How else could it be done?‘

Tereda said, ‗How could he know that the microprint exists, let alone read it?‘

bored.

Kolmogorov said, ‗Your honours, no scientist has ever proven that a person has a soul. ASEP submits that people are only the sum of their genetic makeups.

Zyrin and the clone have identical genes, so neither has any greater claim to be the ‗real‘ person. However, Zyrin here should be deconstructed as per protocol.‘

‗The attendant at the ticket booth could have provided more information, and a The third judge looked at the ASEP reader, upon request. ASEP is not The red-haired judge said, ‗The issue executive thoughtfully while rotating here, as I see it, is that the devices are not responsible for his ignorance or past. He was tall and thin and his red hair reconstructing the same physical material unwillingness to obtain further was stylishly gelled into a wave. ‗You information.‘ that they deconstructed.‘ have only been using the device in your Zyrin glared at him. If he could get his space program for ten years. Were there ‗With respect, your honours, it doesn‘t matter. The clone is genetically identical hands on Kolmogorov … problems with it?‘ to the original.‘ The red-haired judge spoke up again.

The ASEP executive looked ‗Regardless of whether Zyrin should have Tereda said, ‗Your honours, I would like uncomfortable. ‗I believe there were a been better informed before using the to show you the clone. He is still at the few issues in the early stages of device, the fact is that now both he and International Space Station.‘ She touched development.‘ his clone exist. Are they the same a button on her computer and the image ‗Were there any situations like the person? If not, does that mean that the on the wall changed to a small room, current one? The user being left behind in painted white, containing a bunk bed and clone created during a normal process is the transmitting device instead of being hygiene unit. The Zyrin clone sat on the not the same as the original? These are ‗deconstructed‘?‘ serious issues we have to consider.‘ bed leaning against the wall, looking The head judge frowned at him.

‗Not that I know of. The problems were to do with data being mutated or lost.‘ ‗So those users died?‘ ‗Your honours,‘ Kolmogorov said. ‗The people who participated in the early experiments knew the risks and gave their informed consent. We have video footage and signed documents to prove it.‘ Tereda spoke up again. ‗But what about members of the public, like my client?

Zyrin stared at it, both horrified and fascinated. It was as if his reflection in a mirror had come to life and stepped out to confront him. Who was that person?

How could it claim to be him?

Tereda said, ‗He has been kept in a holding cell at the station since the, er, technical malfunction was discovered. He ‗No!‘ Zyrin shouted. ‗No, no, no!‘ has no knowledge of what occurred. I He suddenly realised that he was have not been permitted to contact him.‘ shouting to himself, as a wall of translucent material had risen up from the

edges of his pillar to the ceiling, cutting him off from the chamber.

at which the user and the clone exist simultaneously?‘

‗The tribunal has reached its verdict,‘ the head judge said impassively.

The head judge fiddled with controls on the arm of her chair. Her voice came through a grill in the ceiling, slightly distorted. ‗You will remain in the isolation tube until further notice due to your inability to obey tribunal rules.‘

‗The user in the transmitting device is normally deconstructed immediately after scanning, while the data is being transmitted. There is a very brief delay before the receiving device completes its construction of the clone due to the complex science involved.‘

There was silence as her robe slowly changed colour, darkening until it was black.

‗Help me,‘ Zyrin mouthed at Tereda.

Tereda said, ‗Is ASEP more concerned about following protocol or protecting its reputation? The clone believes that the teleportation was successful and that he was transported. My client here knows the truth. Obviously, it‘s in ASEP‘s best interests to silence him.‘ ‗ASEP‘s reputation is irrelevant,‘ Kolmogorov said stiffly. ‗We are only concerned with legal issues.‘ Tereda said, ‗Your honours, I submit that the clone is not the same person as my client. Identical twins have the same genetic makeup, but are different people.

They become separated in the womb while Zyrin and his clone became separated much later in life. Yet, like twins, they obtained different consciousnesses and therefore different identifies at the moment of separation.

Both should be allowed to live.‘

‗What does that mean?‘ Zyrin said.

Nobody heard him. ‗Hey! What does it mean?‘

The red-haired judge‘s robe darkened ‗So there is a point at which neither copy too, until it was also completely black. exists. Interesting.‘ Tereda fidgeted uncomfortably, avoiding Tereda consulted the notes on her eye contact with Zyrin. computer. ‗My client told me that he heard the message ‗Scanning complete.

Deconstruction commencing‘ just before the malfunction. The clone at the space station wouldn‘t remember hearing that, would he? It wasn‘t part of Zyrin‘s memory at the time that his brain cells were scanned.‘ ‗Your point being?‘ Kolmogorov said.

‗I submit that during every ‗teleportation‘ process there is a moment—even if it‘s only a second or two—when the user in the transmitting portal has a different memory, and therefore a different consciousness, to the one the clone will have. Even if ASEP turned off that message, there would still be a slight delay during which the user would observe and think, thus creating a The ASEP executives started muttering discrepancy. By deconstructing a user, amongst themselves in the public gallery. you are violating their right to life. You The one who had spoken before rose up aren‘t replicating them, you‘re replacing on his pillar again. them—with an imperfect copy.‘ ‗Your honours, that would cause There was silence in the chamber. The innumerable social and legal problems. three judges looked thoughtful as they Both would compete for the same home, rotated past. job, friends. Each would be convinced that he is Zyrin and nobody could tell ‗Both sides pose strong arguments,‘ the them apart … it‘s completely head judge finally said. ‗We will now impractical.‘ retire to consider our verdicts.‘

The seahorse-tattooed judge, who had hardly spoken during the hearing, had rotated to face Zyrin again. ‗I find that Zyrin and the clone are distinct individuals with the same legal rights.

There is no need for the tribunal to determine which has the right to life.

Both do.‘ His robe brightened until it was pure white.

The head judge said, ‗As there is no unanimous verdict, Zyrin‘s right to life is asserted.‘ The ASEP executives by the wall started talking amongst themselves. Kolmogorov frowned. Zyrin leant against the wall of the tube, feeling suddenly weak.

The tattooed judge said, ‗As a right to life issue, I order ASEP to suspend use of the portal until a government review can be carried out to determine issues of ethics and consent.‘ ‗I object, your honours,‘ Kolmogorov said, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. ‗The cost to the government—‘

The judge ignored him. ‗I also order ASEP to transport the clone to Earth by spaceship. That will take some time.

Meanwhile, all interested parties can Kolmogorov said, ‗Your honours, the The light dimmed in the centre of the work out a plan for Zyrin and the clone to argument is irrelevant. ASEP did not chamber. The three judges swivelled their co-exist. Good luck.‘ He smiled slightly. create identical twins. Zyrin voluntarily chairs around and leaned forward, The lights in the chamber dimmed again. underwent a scientific process that was whispering to each other. The interrupted. He should not exist now. The conversation continued for some time, ‗The tribunal hearing is over,‘ the robed tribunal must deconstruct him to correct while Zyrin watched, becoming attendant said. m this error, and to fulfil the legal increasingly agitated. Finally, the lights Chris Broadribb brightened again, the judges swivelled to conditions that he implicitly agreed to.‘ Blaxcell, NSW face the chamber and their pillars rose to The red-haired judge spoke up. ‗Could their full height, towering above you explain the timing during a normal everyone else. ‗teleportation‘ process? Is there any point

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Nightshift Just my luck to draw the short straw … it‘s early morning, 3am, and I‘m pulling a nightshift. I‘d rather be home with my family. It‘s my ‗lunch break‘ and I‘m alone on the top floor terrace of the office tower, overlooking the sleeping city. Five stories below the streets are empty save for the occasional car.

A drunk stumbles along, shouting ‗Merry Christmas!!‘ A smoke, coffee and chocolate … anything to get me through the night … this night. The boss left a few cans of beer in the fridge for the nightshift – to celebrate Christmas. I crack a can open, the cool liquid clashes nicely with my hot black coffee.

Soul food when you‘re on the night moves … the red glow of my cigarette matches the red of the traffic lights. I fumble for some coins in my pocket, nothing, just paper money, can‘t buy snacks from the vending machine or play the video game. The cafeteria is now shut; Helen the cook has gone home for the night. What a night! Silent night, Holy night.

Who is this hurrying somewhere laden with presents so early down below in the street? Another car disappears in the distance towards the suburbs. Some houses have lights on, shining through the windows, so many homes filled with the excited rustle of toys being wrapped carefully while the children sleep. Other windows are dark, like the vacant eyes of people who have seen too much and don‘t want to look any more. A song comes on strong to me from the radio ‗NIGHTSHIFT‘ … and in my mind a word begins to spin, like a Mantra, round and round, it takes off on its own like a slow train-ride-to-nowhere-and-yet-a-somewhere ...

Aristidis Metaxas Katoomba, NSW in the old country, when the snow fell silently in thick flakes to the ground outside his window, and the room was filled with the sound of ‗Silent Night‘ from the old valve radio, the sound of sparklers crackling, the smell of pine needles from the Christmas tree, the flickering candles, and then it was time to enter the living room to see if St Nicholas had come.

And he had, as always, and there were trains, and cars, and windup toys, and the room‘s darkness was lit up brightly by the small candles on the tree, the aroma of fresh pine needles wafting through the home. And there were chocolates and nuts and sweets and glittering lights.

And outside the snow kept falling, falling, and the child would wish that the night would never end, would never end, in his memory.

And silently the man thanks all those dear loved faces who made Christmas so special and a little boy so happy, so happy, even just for one night.

And somewhere a wife opens the door on Christmas day to her husband, finally come home after staying out all night with a woman he had just met at a Christmas party, and she says nothing because of the children, just wants to get the day over with, because it is Christmas.

Somewhere And the man, embarrassed, guilty, trying to make up, trying to Somewhere escape the pain of the morning after, does not know what to Somewhere say, it all seems so long ago.

What did happen last night, what did happen early this And somewhere a mother has skimped and saved and gone morning? without, Did anything really happen? just to be able to put at least one small present under a tiny tree for her sleeping child.

And somewhere a preacher, on Christmas Eve, And somewhere a daughter is given the keys to a brand new so many years ago, red sports car. because his old church harmonium had broken, ‗Wow – for me?! Awesome!‘ sat down and wrote a simple song, ‗Merry Christmas Darling!‘ a Christmas carol And somewhere a man is told with anger ‗It‘s always yours!‘ for his little parish, never dreaming, that one day, one day, And someone says ‗I never belonged to you, ever.‘ his little carol would be sung all around the world, by so many And somewhere last evening a father finally tongues arrived late from the bar to ‗take Mum Christmas shopping‘, and many voices something but with one beating heart. he promised weeks ago but ‗never got around to it‘. ‗Sorry Darl.‘ And somewhere someone dies.

Someone old, someone young, not on Christmas day, dear God, And somewhere a father, now divorced, denied to see surely not on Christmas day! his children on Christmas Day—weeps.

Is there no God? Are our prayers not to be answered?

And somewhere an old man living under a bridge remembers And somewhere a child is born, and somewhere a child his childhood, watches remembers Christmas Eve

as his mother walks away forever. and somewhere a Swaggie catches a fish And somewhere someone is shot down in the street, and and shares it with his cat on Christmas Day. someone has killed a man.

And somewhere someone says ‗Just tell her I am not home.‘ And somewhere someone steals, and somewhere someone is And somewhere a dog dies in the snow hungry, a lost pet, far from home. and somewhere a child still believes the lies.

And somewhere someone would rather be with their lover And somewhere someone is told ‗Our friends won‘t be coming than with his wife. after all today.‘ And somewhere someone says ‗This is the happiest day of my And somewhere someone says ‗We‘re going to drop in at Mum life.‘ and Dad‘s later on the way.‘ And somewhere someone thinks this is always the saddest day And somewhere there is loneliness of the year. and somewhere there is companionship And somewhere the Salvation Army is out there rain, shine or and somewhere there is happiness. snow—on the nightshift.

And somewhere there is grief at the loss of a partner so close to And somewhere someone says ‗Here, brother, take my hand.‘ Christmas.

And somewhere someone is looking at old photographs and And somewhere there is a death remembered, holding back the tears and somewhere tales are retold again of people remembered but it‘s no use, they come, they come. It‘s ok, cry silly old and are no more. bastard, And somewhere there is forgiveness. no-one can see you anyways.

And somewhere a door opens and there stands a brother given up for lost.

And somewhere someone looks at a photograph on the wall and says ‗She‘s coming today.‘ And somewhere someone says ‗Come in …‘ And somewhere a mother prays in the church for her son on And somewhere someone says ‗Get out!‘ death row and somewhere someone visits a grave with an armful of And somewhere a son won‘t talk to his father on the phone. flowers and a heart full of shame.

And somewhere someone says ‗Don‘t ever call me here again.‘ And somewhere someone sits by the phone and waits for the And somewhere someone is without a job or money on call Christmas Day, that never comes and somewhere someone can‘t even buy food, let alone a card and somewhere someone hopes that the call she dreads will not or a stamp. come.

And somewhere someone‘s mailbox is empty.

And somewhere someone is told that ‗Father died last night, And somewhere someone‘s mailbox is overflowing it was so sudden.‘ with cards all saying ‗Merry Christmas!‘ And somewhere the doctor says ‗It‘s a girl!‘ But the occupant of the house And somewhere there is a loud knock on the door lies dead on the floor, and someone drops their empty cup in fear. while the phone rings, with someone somewhere trying to call and say And somewhere a young girl lies dead in an alley ‗We're coming over for Christmas Day, surprise! It‘s been such with a smile on her face and a needle in her arm a long time, happy at last and free from pain and awful loneliness. but you know how busy we are with She got a special deal. the kids, Because it‘s Christmas— it‘s been such a long time.‘ ‗This one‘s on me—Merry Christmas, love ya, Babe!‘ And somewhere a voice whispers ‗Grandma‘s is not answering And somewhere a homeless man tries to keep walking all night her phone ... through the freezing streets of the city to keep warm and to stay I‘m worried.‘ alive for another day.

And somewhere someone remembers a dead wife No room at the shelter—on the nightshift.

NIGHTSHIFT A collection of short stories by

ARISTIDIS METAXAS Available in PDF and epub formats at The MoshShop and Smashwords.com

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And somewhere someone calls out ‗He‘s still breathing!‘ And somewhere someone says ‗We tried all we could, sorry.‘ And somewhere a young man steps out the front door leaving everything he has ever known behind him with a heart full of hope, faith and love and a dollar in his pocket.

And somewhere someone returns back to the place they left years go.

And somewhere a mother thinks of her firstborn she gave up to give the child a better life.

and clutching a useless old rifle. And there was nothing he could do except hold him tight to give the boy a little warmth and watch him die as his tears flowed and the snow slowly turned red and the child called out for Mother.

And he goes and lights a candle in the church, like he‘s done for so many years on Christmas Day, and wishes that it had been him dying there in the snow, and not the boy, because something inside him had died there too on that day the day the light in the boy‘s eyes went out for ever. And he can‘t forget he won‘t forget no Sir. He will never forget …

And somewhere a father is trying to find a runaway daughter and somewhere a son is told ‗She died many years ago.‘ And somewhere someone says ‗I am sorry.‘ And somewhere someone shrugs and says ‗It‘s only words.‘ And somewhere someone says ‗I hate you‘ And somewhere a little girl is building a snowman with a funny and somewhere someone says ‗You lied to me.‘ nose and laughs: And somewhere someone sits in a cheap hotel room and writes a letter ‗Look Daddy, it‘s you!‘ over and over and over again and never sends it.

And somewhere someone sits in a park and feeds the birds And somewhere and somewhere and somewhere someone‘s grandfather dies in the snow. and somewhere ‗He went quickly. It‘s better that way. At least he didn‘t the words repeat over and over … suffer.‘ Didn‘t suffer. it‘s you … it‘s you … it‘s you ...

And somewhere on a radio the band plays Waltzing Matilda, as the old soldier takes the shovel from the shed and buries his fistful of medals in the backyard, but he can‘t bury the memories, no hole would ever be deep enough for the memories of that dreadful bone chilling cold Christmas Day in Europe when he was kneeling in the snow holding the dying body of the enemy he had shot.

Sweet Jesus!

The ‗enemy‘…. was just a child, barely 16 in a uniform far too big

And someone calls me by my name, the music fades away … the train in my head slowly comes to a halt and stops …

I smile, I am not alone, my friends have come, as they always do, on the NIGHTSHIFT. Dedicated to YOU m

Aristidis Metaxas Katoomba, NSW

Albany Dighton Faulconbridge, NSW

Australian Stage The Loch Ard Gorge ne'er loses its charm; It grasps the earth with an iron ore strength.

Apostles gathered like sheep on a farm, And posed ornate, albeit at arm‘s length.

Their kin, the Olgas, are sacred and bold, Which the Kooris revere in their Dreamtime.

As too they protect Uluru like gold; Too precious, priceless, majestic, divine.

The Three Sisters will stand proud on their own; A beauty, a wonder, in this harsh land.

Surrounded by creatures, they are not lone; Flora and fauna do play and hold hands.

The deserts connect them, rivers run rage; United, binded, Australian stage. m

Mary Krone Glenbrook, NSW

Cancer Loss

I lost the body that had been so kind to me So sorry for it A poor reward For exemplary service Inter-galactic scale pleasures Beautiful babies Boundless energy Pain racked and mutilated Barely recognisable Lost a third of itself Much less to rot if it came to that m

Just Wait Until I Tell My Mother

Bob Edgar Wentworth Falls, NSW

I was just minding my own business. After all, it wasn‘t my choice to be there.

However, once I had experienced the tranquil fluidity, I felt that I could never leave.

I floated as if on gossamer, hoping for no sound to be heard other than the beating of my own heart. Other sounds though did invade.

I would feel the sounds of love soothing my soul. I would hear the sounds of melodious life. I tasted the nectar of creation.

I was all that existed, for nothing else in my realm mattered.

I was innately aware that I had a greater purpose for being there, in my cocoon of never-ending peace.

Nevertheless, I was content to envelope and possess the love that abounded and surrounded my self.

I reiterate, I was just minding my own business, when the bubble burst.

I was thrust into an environment of cacophony, attacked with scissors, held upside down by the ankles and smacked on my bare bottom.

All this amid squeals of delight from the perpetrators.

I am now one day old as I begin my search for the people responsible, and heaven help those who survive m Bob has lived in the Blue Mountains for over thirty years, and has been a seafarer for over forty years. Between the bush and the deep blue sea, he finds an abundance of inspiration.

The cream of Country Music comes to Katoomba for the annual BLUE MOUNTAINS COUNTRY JAMM FOR GENES Carrington Hotel, 7 January 2012

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Linda Callaghan Bullaburra, NSW Cool tears flow from up above, And glide over rocks like the wings of a dove.

They caress the face of the stone so smooth, Burning hot with emotion they try and soothe.

The trees are dying and losing their leaves, The air is thick, it is hard to breathe.

Seas choking with oil and fish barely there, Mother Nature pleads, does anyone care?

She cries out loud for all to hear, Can‘t you see the devastation, can‘t you feel the fear?

Will it ever end; will it ever recover, Disasters abound one after the other.

It is time for change the earth is calling, We need to stop the sky from falling.

We can make a difference you and I Save the earth, we can but try. m

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The Book My legs are crossed, Carefully place atop; A book My hands caress And very much love The book My fingers outline each Beautiful page of My book Puppy-dog ears and Crinkled pages define This book It's old and unique and loved, perfect for A book m

A Crime By Any Other Name The horizon was just showing the first faint blushes of apricot and salmon, heralds of a new day, when the peaceful pre-dawn quiet was shattered as the tanks, planes and storm troops of the invader charged across the border into the territory of their small and virtually defenseless neighbour in a wellcoordinated blitzkrieg. ‗They fired at us,‘ proclaimed the invader‘s leader indignantly, ‗and from five o‘clock this morning we have been firing back.‘ What the leader did not mention was the real reason for the attack: more land to be occupied by his people—the chosen people who believe themselves to be a race apart.

Lebensraum!

The father and his eldest son were making their way to work from the humble one bedroom flat that was home for their family of seven when they were spotted by a squad of the invader‘s troops, who immediately opened fire.

With a grip, tightened by terror, on the arm of his twelve-year-old son the father started to run and dodge as fast as he could in a frantic search for cover. He could hear the bullets snapping and buzzing past them, like an angry swarm of supersonic wasps, coming ever closer.

The young boy, who had soiled himself in fright, tripped on some rubble that was all that was left of the surrounding houses from a previous attack by the invaders the year before, and fell heavily. As he was helping his son to his feet, the father felt several bullets tug at his clothing like small children wanting his attention.

Having dragged the boy to his feet, he had taken no more than half a dozen steps when there was a loud meaty thud and he found himself on the ground, unable to move.

As the first tendrils of what would become a savage agony were starting to radiate from the bullet that had destroyed his spine, the father was trying to tell the stunned youngster to get down. The invaders fired again, chopping the boy‘s

Mick Langford Goulburn, NSW

face apart as he fell. And the attacks went raised his grandfather‘s rusty old hunting rifle and started looking for any sign of on. the invaders when he heard the A scant kilometre to the rear of the unmistakable sound of approaching attack, the invader‘s heavy artillery helicopters. They would pass no more pounded the houses and small shops, than 500m to his south. schools and meagre hospitals of their defenseless neighbour, while the gunners He only had three 40 year old cartridges went through, what was to them, no more for the old rifle, so it was more of an than another exercise in ballistics. outlet for his life of frustration, Several joked that dawn was the best time humiliation and despair than a serious to rain destruction on someone; at least it attempt to bring down an enemy aircraft. was nice and cool while they were Sadly, as luck would have it, the pilot of humping all these heavy shells to feed the lead gunship happened to look in the brother‘s direction as he fired and the their guns. round ricocheted harmlessly off the thick The smaller nation had already been armored glass of the cockpit. turned into an overcrowded, povertystricken ghetto by years of blockades, With the precision born of thorough embargos and destructive incursions by training and repetition, the three gunships their powerful and aggressive neighbour. turned as one and opened fire. The lead At each incursion, another piece of aircraft fired a long volley of rockets into infrastructure vital for any form of the front of the building, collapsing large civilised living was attacked and areas of wall and exposing the people destroyed: power stations, water and trying to take refuge in their homes. His sewerage systems, roads, bridges and wingmen then followed through with a volley of white-phosphorus incendiary even hospitals. Nothing was safe. rockets, turning the building into a sevenCowering with her four children in the storey funeral pyre. The roar of the tiny bathroom of their fifth floor flames was not quite loud enough to apartment, the young widow had been drown out the tortured shrieks of the trying to pray, but the argument she had trapped and dying. The gunships returned just had with her younger brother had to formation and flew back to their base reduced her to gibbering terror; she well for breakfast. And the attacks went on. knew the deadly consequences of any Two days later and several kilometres to show of resistance. the west, a squad of police, backed up by Her brother had been forced into a lightly armed group of civilians, adulthood very early in life. He became gathered in the enclosed yard of a local the man of the family during a previous police station trying to decide how best to attack by the invaders five years before. defend their women and children from He was thirteen when their parents and their relentless tormentors. Their tiny his brother-in-law were killed, along with country had no army; they had no tanks, seven others, when a plane, returning artillery or planes with which to defend from bombing a partially reconstructed what little they had left from previous water purification plant, had strafed them occupations. A militant political group with cannon-fire as they were taking had managed to smuggle a few assault wounded neighbours to seek medical rifles, light machine guns and grenade help. The invaders, as was their way, had launchers through the invader‘s even prevented the few working blockades, and this meagre harvest would ambulances from travelling out to collect have to form their defence. After a the many dead and wounded that they lifetime of persecution and humiliation were creating. these few young defenders were more When he reached the flat roof, two floors than willing to die if it meant taking some above the apartment, the angry youth of their tormentors with them.

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24 Order Now for Christmas! hazelbrookcellars.com.au These unfortunate people were on their own. World leaders made their usual hollow noises of fake condemnation about the invaders, but as usual, nothing else is ever done. There is no oil here.

There are no mineral deposits or wealth of any kind for the other nations of the world to covet. They just look the other way, and in a few days, the world has forgotten, and the attacks go on.

would neither eat nor drink, and gave no response to any stimuli; she just stared into the middle distance at a hell only she could see, a hell that she has scant likelihood of ever leaving.

Despite the constant threat of mutilation or death, families come out of their makeshift shelter during the daylight hours to bury their dead and to pick through the broken remains of their By noon on the tenth day of the invasion, homes, looking for anything that had the surviving medical facilities were in survived the bombing and artillery. A critical overload with dead and wounded dented pan that could still be used for pouring in from the lunar landscape that cooking or to boil some of the now had been their city. Because of the unsafe drinking water; a small and invader‘s long-standing blockade, the cherished teddy bear, dusty and with one medics and doctors looked at their bare eye hanging off, but still ready for a cuddle; faded photos in broken frames of supply rooms with helpless dread. parents and grandparents, and other loved They were already forced to wash ones murdered by the invaders; some bandages taken from the dead so that they warm clothes or blankets to ward off the could be used again. They had run out of bone-deep chill that is part and parcel of antibiotics and painkillers and were being forced to sleep on concrete or the almost out of anesthetic, and they would cold, stony ground. soon have to dig out shrapnel and amputate the limbs of wounded children The hundreds of people made homeless while they were awake. Luckily, one of by this most recent attack had no choice the doctors had some fishing line at home but to join the thousands of others, and an orderly had risked his life to fetch victims of repeated past attacks, in the it, so they at least were able to stitch up overcrowded tent cities of the refugee camps. Refugees in what is left of their the wounds. own country; marginalised, poverty Sitting quietly in a corner of the crowded stricken and humiliated. Helpless, waiting room in blood stained and dusty hopeless, and seemingly friendless, they clothes, is a five year old girl, her dark, see no light at the end of the tunnel, for of sunken eyes grown large and round with course, there is none. And the attacks the horror of being trapped, unhurt, for went on. three days in the collapsed wreckage of her bombed out house, surrounded by the The consuming, deep-seated hatred that dismembered remains of her family. She these atrocities, quite naturally, engender

Ned Kelly’s Feast ‗Yin‘s Heavenly Salad for Ned Kelly, Tom Lloyd and Joe Byrne 18 August 1878‘

At the end though, he staggered shooting through the rising mist and Joe‘s mare, Music, had skittered past rearing her head, pleading ‗climb up, climb up‘.

Ned Kelly sat in his cell singing softly, a When the return fire was a cacophony of condemned man, beaten by pride and hail in his headpiece, then he might have circumstance, in body and spirit. He bolted, mounted and away like the could have escaped the Glenrowan siege; phantom Bunyip. But his limbs were indeed he had been tempted in the night buggered by shot; besides, he‘d had while resting on the mountain, his enough.

Gethsemane. But Ned Kelly was an invincible, a man of honour and Well he was cooked now. The boys in reputation, and Joe Byrne and the two peace, God rest them. Just him alive. The trial had not gone his way. He‘d thought boys were trapped in the pub.

in the hearts of these refugees is the mirror of the invader‘s obvious hatred of them, and the invaders must hate them indeed to cause the amount of suffering they bring about with their constant, merciless and barbarous aggression.

These events form the catalyst for a selfperpetuating cycle; out of humiliation and grief, the victims, with a tragic inevitability, strike out in the only way they can, at their tormentors who respond with overwhelming force, killing yet more women and children, destroying more homes and making more refugees.

It is a commonly held, and probably inevitable, belief among these embattled and persecuted people that this is, in fact, the invaders‘ true goal: to keep the cycle going until there is no-one left to resist.

They could then add the rest of the country to the large percentage that they had already stolen.

After weeks of relentless attacks, the invaders decided that they had done enough damage for the time being, and started to withdraw their forces, unit by unit. It was almost dark as the last troop of tanks reached the border. In the middle of the column of armoured vehicles, the command tank proudly flew the invader‘s national flag from a large radio aerial, and as they ground their way home the last rays of the setting sun struck the flag, turning the white field behind the sixpointed blue star a much more appropriate blood-red. m Mick Langford Goulburn, NSW

Barry McGloin Holder, ACT justice would prevail, but the traps had cooked the books, larded the witnesses and the judge had no bone of mercy, understanding or justice in his body. Fry him forever with those puffed up adders who ponced and preened in high places wanting him and his kind eradicated from this English colony. He represented rebellion, uprising, disrespect. An outlaw.

His own plan for an Irish Republic had gone awry, skewed and skewered by treachery. That bastard school teacher warning the train. I trusted him. Snakes in

the skullery. When all seems well and the glow of trust is upon you be wary. Too much grog. The train late. Too many jigs.

The innkeeper Ann was a possum in the pantry—very generous. I won‘t see her again. What could have been.

I could have let Kennedy go as he run but I thought he was aiming, didn‘t I, not surrendering. I‘m sure that was it. I think that was it. I swore that was it. I may have been mistaken and my impulse, my command of aim, my mantle of retribution before my men, may have We had a grand life, me and the lads. The interceded. ‗God forgive you,‘ said he. freedom to roam our land—our land, our Dying words. No, I‘m sure I gave him beautiful land, in all its seasons, its justice. Took his watch, yes, old habits, glorious colours, aromas of earth and rain just business. And shot him. So the on grass and eucalypt. Such majestic creatures of the bush wouldn‘t eat him moods and holy power to cleanse and alive. Merciful. More than the fat sow heal. We was kings, bold fearless and faced beak who was Irish, like traps free. What did Joe say? Lords of our Scanlon Kennedy and bastard Lonigan, Dominion. I liked that. Poor Byrne, who I beat to the draw with a hole smack trusted friend. Many‘s the sprightly through his skull for the time he grabbed conversation we had around the camp fire my privates in Benalla. Your own kind, night, belly full of roo or possum stew, the scimitar of English justice. What hope pass the pipe of Chinese midnight is there? He is me and I him. Like the wisdom and he yabbering the pigtail figure in my cell. Let‘s hope to Christ St tongue. Kings in our warmth and Peter is Christian, says I. certainty. Remember the time we ran the horses to Melbourne Joe? For old times‘ History sake, with Tom, then with a bag of booty This recipe was handed down somehow out to the Palace of Plenty? And the through the years on yellowed paper to twins from Siam Yin and Yang with their family on my wife‘s side. It was entitled treats and tricks and monkey nuts—such ‗Yin‘s Heavenly Salad for Ned Kelly, soft welcome splendour and comfort and Tom Lloyd and Joe Byrne 18 August full feathered dreams of far off Siam.

1878‘. Some venerable great aunts way Kings. And the food from the heavenly back in Wangaratta may have been orient to conclude. Sure my eyes and friendly with Ned or his family or palate never dreamed such wonders. henchmen and a Byrne was also on my This place, now the cold blue sour stones wife‘s side and so through my interest in of English justice, I could walk through if Kelly it somehow materialised, to my I tries hard, inviolate to their repression great delight, here in Canberra. The paper but for the figure crouched there. I don‘t went up with our house and belongings know his demeanour, whether friend or and 500 others in the bushfire of 2003. foe. The priest gave small comfort, my The Siamese recipe surprisingly, or absolution withheld subject to my perhaps not, matches pretty well some contrite heart which can never be when I modern Thai salad dressings and the would do the same now. My mother cooking of the seafood would not have locked in the same gaol, my precious changed, apart from the medium. The guiltless mother, on stewed up testimony ancient straight from the sea to the from a crooked loafing scoundrel of a wooden fire method would undoubtedly traps arse which the judge never add flavour. questioned. ‗My God,‘ says I, and the So here it is and when you eat it give a priest wanting me to be contrite. ‗Never,‘ nod to Ned, perhaps shoot him a prayer, I replied. ‗You‘d better leave, Father, and imagine if you will the Palace of before I say more than I should, before Plenty, and the bounty of Yin and Yang, the fire in my breast bursts upon your tricks treats and monkey nuts, the eyes.‘ He went out praying for my soul— scimitar of justice, the meaning of truth he could be praying for some time yet. and the absolution of inhumanity, and But I pray that Our Lady will intercede. humanity as a whole, and the redemption She has helped in the past though I could not find comfort anywhere after shooting of souls. On the other hand just enjoy it.

Kennedy, but what choice had I? I wonder if St Peter at Heaven‘s gate will look at my sins of murder, theft and pride and see my circumstance. I wonder, will he quote the commandments, my second judge, don the black cap and send me down again, or say, ‗Ned my son, you was pushed beyond your limits. Step inside and rest now.‘

Ingredients 4 baby calamari 4 large prawns 2 Tasmanian scallops baby spinach/rocket mix 6 thin slices tomato 1 small cucumber sliced thinly lengthwise herbs—any combination coriander, dill, mint, Vietnamese mint, tarragon, parsley pea sprouts, a few red capsicum, a few thin slices Dressing 2 coriander roots scraped 2 pinches sea salt 5 garlic cloves peeled 5 scud chillies 3 tablespoons white sugar 6 tablespoons lime juice 3 tablespoons lemon juice 4 tablespoons Thai fish sauce (Nam Pla) Calamari. Slice through the outer skin vertically/lengthwise and peel off.

Extract the quill/backbone. Extract the innards by gently pulling the head. Slice the tentacles below the eyes. Slice the tube in rings. Place in bowl with 2 tablespoons of coconut milk and 2 tablespoons fish sauce (nam pla) for 30 minutes.

Prawns. Peel if you wish or leave the shell on for the colour. You can eat the shell.

Some points Yin notes that the fish and shellfish (I suggest prawns and calamari, maybe mussels and/or scallops) can be substituted with freshwater yabbies or thin sliced roo. Seafood may not have been so readily available in North East Victorian bush, particularly on some wallaby trail in the Strathbogies where the gang sought to avoid the traps. She writes, or someone for her, ‗chinaman garden for heb‘ [herbs]. Of Chinamen and Chinese gardens there were plenty; in fact Beechworth had a huge Chinese population which has its own cemetery.

m Barry is an ex public servant, happily married and the proud father of three and grandfather of four (so far). His interests are in writing stories and poetry, music—playing and listening—bush walking, photography, travelling, cheffing, good restaurants and gawking at humanity in its many guises.

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Harold Mally Allambie Heights, NSW

Miss Bunny Rapid fire Chinese speech echoes all around me. The speaker‘s microphone technique is poor. When she picks it up she taps the mic hard with her hand to test that it is on. Then she holds it too close to her mouth as she speaks, so that it is distorted and echoes all around the coach.

I don‘t normally take tours but the only way that I know to get from Shanghai to Chou Chong is to take a tour. It‘s only a short day trip, but part of the price you have to pay on any tour in China, even a short one like this, is to listen to the tour guide speaking in a language you don‘t understand, going on and on endlessly about whatever it is they choose to go on about. At least I don‘t understand the language, so I can tune out, although the way this woman speaks, never stopping to take a breath, combined with the distortion and echo must make it annoying even for the Chinese; but they listen politely and don‘t seem to mind.

a phone with rabbit ears before. At first I think the protrusions are some kind of antennae, but I soon realise that they are not. She has a yellow cover with rabbit ears on her iPhone. What kind of person would carry a phone with rabbit ears? I wonder. The same kind who would wear a Japanese cartoon character on their shirt and have a cute cartoon theme ringtone, I suppose.

She punches a few Chinese symbols into her rabbit eared phone, which

contacts and, in deference to her phone cover, punch in the name ‗Miss Bunny‘.

Miss Bunny must have done some kind of breathing exercises in her downtime from leading tours, because she is able to talk and talk without taking a breath.

She‘s like an Energiser bunny. Once she starts she just keeps going. I don‘t know what information she could be imparting to us, but there is plenty of it. Presumably it has something to do with Chou Chong, our destination.

Chou Chong is a water village, like a Chinese version of Venice. There are a few such water towns in China. They have canals and use gondola-type boats as transportation. I‘ve been to one before, a place called Wu Zhang. That was a small village clustered around a few canals. There was no running water in their houses and the villagers used the canal not just for transportation but also for washing and presumably in years gone by for drinking as well. The local gondola drivers would take you around the village for a small fee. It was a quiet, rustic, untouched place, like a throwback to a lost era.

Before the coach left I‘d had a brief conversation with the tour guide. The bus is only half full, but I sit near the back. I watch her going to all the passengers individually and having an animated conversation with each. I am not sure what they are doing, but as she proceeds towards the back of the bus I realise that she is exchanging phone numbers with each of them. It makes a kind of sense. If anyone gets lost, they don‘t have to send out a search party. Just use the technology.

Luckily I have bought a cheap phone for my travels with a prepaid sim. But I don‘t know my number.

When she comes to me she asks in English for my phone number. I notice that she is wearing a ‗Hello Kitty‘ t-shirt and a pair of tight fitting very short denim shorts. I hold out the phone and tell her I don‘t know the number. She takes the phone from me and punches in some numbers. From inside a pocket in Hello Kitty‘s ear, a ring tone that sounds like a Japanese cartoon theme emanates. She pulls an iPhone from the feline pocket. I have never seen

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Whenever I met any English speaking locals in Shanghai they would always suggest places to see. Invariably I would answer ‗been there,‘ ‗seen it,‘ ‗done it.‘ Then they would say Chou Chong. I‘d say ‗No, I haven‘t been there.‘ ‗You must see it,‘ they‘d say. ‗It‘s a water village.‘ Then I‘d explain that I‘d been to another water village, Wu Zhang, at which they would scoff and say ‗No comparison. Chou Chong is the one you must see.‘

presumably represent my name, then hands me back my phone. She points to the display on my rudimentary communications device and says ‗My number.‘ I don‘t know the tour guide‘s name, so I save the number to my

Without warning Miss Bunny stops talking and sits down. I was expecting that she would have to stop sometime, but I am surprised at the abruptness of the cessation. One moment her voice is echoing all around the coach, the next all is silent. There is no build up to a big finish neither is there a winding down, just a brusque finish in what, for all I can tell, may well have been mid-sentence.

We are well out of Shanghai now and travelling through a more rural setting.

Looking out at the green fields I regret the fact that I did not bring a book along.

My eyes start to close, lulled by the soporific monotony of the bus engine.

After explaining the finer points of the statues for an interminably long time, the motor-mouthed guide arrives with her group and starts loudly declaiming. So now both tour guides are in the pavilion trying to shout over the top of each other in Chinese, while their voices echo A jarring tap tap tap convulses through through the pavilion. I move ahead of the the bus PA system indicating that Miss duelling tour guides and wait for the Bunny is about to start up again. I look to group to catch up. the front and sure enough there she is, abusing the microphone, holding it too Eventually our tour guide must have close as she starts apparently where she finished his prepared spiel and he and the had left off before, with the same rapid, rest of the party start to move on to the distorted delivery lacking any discernible next attraction, which is some kind of plaque. The same thing happens. After intake of breath. talking knowledgeably about the plaque She continues talking until the bus stops. for a while, motor mouth with the yellow I can see no indication of a water village: flag turns up and starts shouting the same no old houses cobbled together, no speech at her group. This becomes the gondolas, no waterways. Everyone pattern. The blue flag group moves on, moves out of the bus, no doubt as they the guide starts talking, the yellow flag had been instructed by Miss Bunny‘s group turns up a few minutes later and rapid fire exposition. I follow and blink motor mouth tries to shout the same spiel in what is now harsh mid-morning sun. over the top of our guide. Why they don‘t Miss Bunny holds a blue flag on a stick. just combine the two groups I‘ll never This is our point of reference. We are to know. follow the blue flag, which she hands Back in the bus Miss Bunny resumes her over to another guide, this one apparently role as our tour guide by tapping being a site specific expert. Everyone ferociously on the microphone to make obediently follows the new flag-bearer. sure it works, then settling into her

goes off no doubt to join the others in the bus compound. I can still see no canals, but Miss Bunny is now totally in control.

There is nobody to hand over to; she must be the water town subject matter expert. Apart from the flag, she is equipped with a portable microphone that hooks around her neck and a small speaker attached to her belt, which gives the unnerving effect of her incessant speech coming from the vicinity of her vagina.

She raises her flag and marches up the hill towards the water town, her tour group following loyally behind. I can‘t help wondering if the way she proudly marches holding the flag is inspired by some kind of revolutionary fantasy.

Possibly her grandparents were involved in the revolution and now that the revolution has descended into centralised capitalism, carrying a tour guide flag is the closest she can get to her fantasy of leading a revolution.

Even though she holds her flag high, I am taller than the average Chinese, so walking behind her I am able to reach up and pull on the elevated flag. Miss Bunny turns around quickly to see what has disturbed her flag bearing, but sees it is unintelligible (to me) non-stop echoing only me. She smiles an indulgent tourist I feel a little traitorous abandoning our guide smile and continues, turning to guide to follow this interloper, so I hang commentary. For someone who obviously loves to talk, it is surprising walk backwards occasionally to impart back a little and ask Miss Bunny where that her microphone technique is so poor. some wisdom to us via her vagina the canals are.

In spite of this though, I am glad to have speaker.

She laughs and tells me that this is not her as our guide rather than motor mouth My worst fears about this place are Chou Chong. This is our first stop, a from the temple. exceeded. The water town is overrun by temple. As we speak more tour buses are Without any indication from Miss tour groups. Criss-crossing the cobbled pulling up behind us. I ask how many streets are multiple flags, all held aloft by more stops there will be. She tells me that Bunny‘s tone of voice that we have proud tour guides, followed by politely the water village will be next, then urges arrived, I see a sign in Chinese and interested tour groups. It is evident that me to hurry and join the group otherwise English welcoming us to ‗China‘s nobody actually lives in this village I might miss something. There must be a Number One Water Town,‘ but I don‘t anymore. All of the rustic houses along million such temples in this country and I actually see any water. The first thing I the edge of the canal have been turned don‘t understand a word of the language, see is a car park full of tourist coaches.

We drive past this and there is a new into shops which sell the usual kind of so I don‘t think that this would be a looking housing development and a junk that can be found in street stalls complete catastrophe, but I catch up to similarly sparkling shopping mall. This across the country: t-shirts, jewellery, the group, which is politely listening to jade, silk, junky souvenirs, musical the interloper guide‘s exposition about a does not give me a good feeling about China‘s number one water town. I instruments, out of date Shanghai Expo small statue of some kind of mythical contrast it with the rustic little village that trinkets plus a multitude of food outlets. animal. Before he finishes another tour I had been to before and think I would It is true that there is a woman washing group arrives and a loud mouthed tour guide carrying a yellow flag starts talking prefer to be back in the water town which clothes in the canal, but I am sure that she is only there to add a bit of colour. It‘s a to her group. Our interloper guide leads is obviously a number greater than one. case of ‗here comes another tour group, us to the next attraction, a pavilion The bus stops at a sort of checkpoint start washing‘. This is not a water village. containing a couple of statues. beyond which it cannot travel. We all file It was once, but now it is a water village out and huddle in a little group as the bus

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Miss Bunny continues her job with ruthless efficiency. She navigates us through the narrow cobbled pathways, managing to avoid conflict with other tour parties and keeps up a non-stop commentary through her vagina speaker, as she leads us to yet another old house so we can gawk at the way that the ancients prepared food or sat in their living rooms. I spend my time wondering whether our tour guide gets a sexual thrill from the vibrations of the vagina speaker.

Maybe that‘s why she talks so much.

Maybe she‘s enjoying this more than anyone else in the tour group.

All I really want is to go on a gondola ride, but there has been no sign of that happening. In this tightly stage managed tour group, I am sure we will get the chance, but only when Miss Bunny‘s vagina says so.

We stop at a place and Miss Bunny directs us inside. It is a restaurant. We are obviously now to eat lunch. Everyone else in the tour party is in groups of two or more, so they all take tables together. I sit at a table alone. As everyone is organising themselves, Miss Bunny is on the job ensuring that all are present and accounted for. When she is satisfied that nobody has escaped the restaurant part of the day‘s entertainment she comes and speaks to me in English. She explains that we are to have lunch here, which I had managed to work out for myself, and that the tour price does not include the meal. I take in this information and ask her if she will join me. She looks at me like she doesn‘t understand the question, so I gesture grandly, for her to sit with me at my table. ‗Oh no,‘ she says hastily. ‗You have an engagement somewhere else?‘ ‗No,‘ she replies, smiling sweetly. ‗It is against the rules. I have to eat in the back.‘ At least she has turned off the microphone so she is speaking through her mouth.

So while there is less distraction I take the opportunity to ask her when I will

have the opportunity to take a gondola ride. ‗After lunch,‘ she replies. ‗Free time.‘ I order too much food. I get the local specialty which is a joint of pork cooked in some kind of sauce. I also order a won ton soup and some rice.

Most people order the pork, but it is huge; they have two or four people to eat it. I also get the same quantity of rice as the multiple tables. Miss Bunny should have joined me; there is plenty for two, even four. The food is okay, nothing spectacular. The pork is tender and falls off the bones. I do my best to eat everything, but it is a struggle. I am the last to leave the restaurant, because I eat at least twice as much as everyone else.

comments about the Opera House, the Gold Coast or kangaroos, but she surprises me. ‗They are doing a lot of good work on eco-tourism there. I‘d like to see what they do.‘ ‗Oh, so you are really into this tourism thing, then. It‘s not just a temporary type job.‘ ‗Oh no. I studied hard at university to get into tourism.‘ ‗You have tourist guide courses at university?‘ I ask. ‗Of course. Don‘t you?‘

I don‘t think we do, but I have to admit that I don‘t really know. ‗Hey,‘ I say. ‗Why don‘t you come for a boat ride on the canal with me? There‘s plenty of I leave just as another tour party files into room on those boats.‘ the restaurant behind a yellow flag. The ‗No can do,‘ she says, shaking her head. whole tourist operation is coordinated ‗Against the rules?‘ She nods. I think she with military precision. seems a little regretful, but I could be Our tour guide is sitting on a ledge just a imagining it. small way down from the restaurant.

Her directions were good so I find the ‗Free time,‘ she says as I approach. ‗Be place where I could catch a gondola. back at meeting point two thirty.‘ Unlike the previous water village that I had visited, where you jumped onto the ‗Meeting point?‘ gondola from a set of roughly carved steps in the side of the canal, here they ‗Where bus let us off.‘ have built a wharf. It‘s the kind of wharf I have seen a few gondolas floating past, that you would expect to catch a cross but I do not see any place where you can ocean ferry. There is a ticket office and a get on. We have passed no pier or large waiting area. I pay a hundred yuan anything similar. I ask Miss Bunny how I for a ticket and am escorted to a jumping go about getting a ride on a gondola. She on area where I catch the next gondola. looks at me uncomprehendingly.

For some reason all of the gondola ‗A boat,‘ I say, making rowing actions. drivers are women. They also wear a kind ‗Where do I get on a boat?‘ of corporate uniform, grey pants and a ‗Ah!‘ Comprehension lights up her face. blue blouse with Chinese motifs, plus a She points me in the right direction, then generic Asian cone shaped thatched hat. apologises because her English is not so My suspicion that this is a theme park is confirmed. good. ‗It‘s a lot better than my Mandarin,‘ I say. She smiles amiably. ‗Your English seems pretty good to me,‘ I add. ‗I find it hard to understand your accent,‘ she says. ‗But I‘m Australian,‘ I say indignantly. ‗I don‘t have an accent.‘ She doesn‘t seem to comprehend that this is a joke. ‗You from Australia? I‘d like to go to Australia.‘ I expect the usual

The ride around the canals is pleasant. At least the waterways are relatively unspoiled. Then the gondolier gives me a surprise: she starts singing and she does it gloriously. Obviously it is some kind of local boating song and the sound carries majestically over the water. I can almost feel like I am back in a previous era. I‘m glad that I don‘t speak the language, as I would ask her if the song was passed down to her by her mother and she would probably answer that she learned it from

the CD. I am so impressed with her singing that I give the gondolier a tip at the journey‘s end, even though the ticket price probably included the singing.

imagine what you could possibly study for three years. At least they could have mentioned not tapping the microphone, not holding it too close. Just as I am wondering if there is a unit concerning As we wait for the bus to pick us up, sexual stimulation by vibrations from Miss Bunny takes time out from counting portable speakers, I fall asleep. tourists to ask me how the boat ride was.

I tell her it was very enjoyable. She says, The shuddering halt of the bus awakens ‗I think you were the only one.‘ I don‘t me. I look around. It looks like we are understand what she means at first but back in Shanghai but I don‘t recognise after a little digging I comprehend her the area. We are parked in front of a meaning. Nobody else in the tourist building called ‗Museum of Chinese Art group took a gondola ride. Why would and Culture‘. Looks like another attempt anyone go for a day trip to the water by the Chinese to broaden our minds. I village if you didn‘t go for a ride on the am half groggy from having slept on the gondola? I don‘t understand other people. bus, but as I step out someone hands us each a lanyard with a ‗VIP Pass‘ I‘m prepared for a bus ride home, but the attached, a clear indication that it was not Chinese tourist authority or whoever it is our minds in which they were interested, who plans these things has other ideas. only our pockets.

The coach stops at a government run shop selling silk products. They hand out The tour group is shuffled into a room exclusive cards which, as members of the with chairs all around and no visible tour group, entitle us to discounts. Miss examples of art or culture. Miss Bunny is Bunny hands over her flag to an not in attendance. A man comes in and employee of the silk shop who takes the addresses us with an unremittingly group on a tour in which she explains the passionate speech, the content of which I intricacies of silkworms and the can only guess. Many of the group seem interested, even excited by the speech. production of a variety of silk products.

They even applaud the speaker when he At one point, while extolling the virtues finishes. of silk bedspreads, the silk factory employee puts the flag on the counter. I We are then ushered into an adjoining sneak around and pick up the flag and room in which there are a number of over -priced items of jewellery. These are take it to Miss Bunny. obviously the examples of objects of ‗Art ‗I‘ve liberated the flag,‘ I tell her. ‗You and Culture‘ housed by the building. An can take back control of the tour party army of sales people descends on the now.‘ group and starts displaying these items of She just takes back the flag and hands it jewellery. To my surprise, unlike the silk to the silk lady. She has a long way to go place where nobody was interested, it seems that everybody is captivated by the before she understands the Australian jewellery. They all negotiate, haggle and sense of humour. bargain with gay abandon. I see many I don‘t think anybody buys any of the silk wads of cash handed over in exchange for products. As we finally exit the building articles of jade, gold and other jewellery; into the afternoon heat I see hundreds of both buyers and sellers appearing to be exclusive cards littering the street where ecstatic about the transactions. other tour groups have obviously been I wander around the glass display before us. At least they could have cabinets a couple of times and stop, just provided a bin. watching the fervent trading, when one of On the drive back Miss Bunny is back in the sales force says to me ‗Ah, you show charge talking non-stop with her poor good taste.‘ Clearly, they have sent in the microphone technique. She just starts and sales guy who speaks some English. He keeps going. I find myself thinking about pulls out from the cabinet a gold ring a university for tour guides. I wonder with a large red stone which is probably a what they teach there. Talking without ruby. It has a price tag of Y19,888, which breathing? Flag bearing? I couldn‘t translates roughly to two and a half

thousand Aussie dollars. I shake my head and wave my hand dismissively. ‗Too expensive? Ah, don‘t worry about the price tag. We can do you very good deal. Today only. Make an offer.‘ I don‘t want to make an offer. I keep saying no, I‘m not interested, while he presses me to make an offer. Meanwhile a couple of other sales people come and join us. I can see from their collective urging that I am not going to get out of here without making some kind of offer.

But I had signed up for the water village tour, not the blow the budget on jewellery you don‘t want tour. So I am not prepared to play their game, so I play my own. ‗Five hundred,‘ I say.

He tells me that this is a very fine piece of jewellery that will make my wife or girlfriend very happy. How about if he comes down to ten thousand? ‗Five hundred,‘ I say.

More sales people start to crowd around.

The guy who speaks some English keeps dropping his price, but I won‘t play the game. I just keep repeating ‗five hundred,‘ expecting him to replace the ring in the cabinet, throw me out and slam the door behind me. But he keeps talking incessantly, like an honours graduate from Tour Guide University.

I am now surrounded by a sales force entourage, who seem to be barracking for a sale. There are oohs, aahs and sighs at each parry and thrust of offer and lack of counter offer.

Finally, frustrated, the guy who speaks some English says, ‗I will talk to the boss.‘ He goes over and speaks to the passionate speechmaker, whispers to him, shows him the piece of jewellery and confers some more. While this is happening I notice that I am surrounded by the entire sales force, that everyone else has made their purchases and left. I am now starting to feel a little uncomfortable. The passionate speechmaker writes something on a piece of paper and hands it to the guy who speaks some English, who returns to me in a dignified manner. ‗The boss says his first son has just been born. To make sure wife and son are both

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www.tomtomproductions.com.au healthy he wants to keep everyone happy. ‗Your wife or girlfriend will be very Today only. He has agreed to this price.‘ happy,‘ she says, impressed.

He hands me the paper. Written on it is a ‗I don‘t have a wife or girlfriend,‘ I reply. figure: Y600.

Then, on an impulse I hold it in front of I am stunned. I had no intention of her with both hands and say, ‗It‘s for buying a two and a half thousand dollar you.‘ piece of jewellery. I was just being For the first time since she graduated difficult. But he‘s offering it to me for from the University of Tourist Guides she like seventy-five bucks. I would appear is lost for words. She gasps, and then very churlish to reject the offer now. I says ‗I can‘t.‘ nod my head and pull out my wallet.

I take it out of the box and slip it onto her The entire Museum of Chinese Art and right hand ring finger.

Culture sales force erupts in a collective cheer. They pat me on the back and shake ‗Of course you can,‘ I say. ‗It fits my hand. They are happy. They are perfectly.‘ happy for me and for the boss and for his new born son. The guy who speaks some Suddenly we are interrupted by an aggressive sounding Chinese voice. She English hands me the ring in a small hides the hand behind her back and jewel box as I hand him over six crisp responds in a similar tone. I realise it is hundred-yuan notes. the coach driver. I also understand that Outside it is now dark. I think that I must the Chinese language can sound like be the last person out, but when I find the argument when people are just discussing tour bus I am surprised that the lights are something. After a brief apparent off and it is empty. I turn around and argument, Miss Bunny grabs my arm and Miss Bunny is standing there. She tells says ‗I will get you a taxi.‘ me that everyone else has already gone and asks me where the hotel is that I am I try to protest but she cuts me short. staying in. I tell her. She says she will ‗It is my responsibility to make sure you call me a taxi. I tell her not to bother. get home safely. I will find you taxi.‘ She notices the ring box I am carrying and asks me what I bought. I flip open the box and display the ring to her.

She drags me to the main road.

but they are all taken. One stops a little way up the street, we run for it, but someone gets out and someone else gazumps us immediately.

This happens four times. On the fifth attempt, I manage to get there first. ‗Come with me,‘ I say opening the door of the taxi.

She gulps, glances at her right hand and says meekly, ‗I can‘t. I‘d lose my job.‘ She pushes me into the back seat, shuts the door and barks some instructions to the driver.

As we drive into the Shanghai night I realise that I have just given a ring which sells for twenty thousand Chinese yuan to a girl whose name I don‘t even know.

Back at the hotel I can‘t help wondering if she is now sitting around a bar with her fellow graduates of the Shanghai Tour Guide University laughing about the sucker who just gave her the best tip she‘d ever received. My reverie is interrupted by the jarring sound of my cheap travelling phone.

I wonder who could be ringing me. It takes a moment for me to register the name that flashes on the display: ‗Miss Bunny.‘ m

There are easier things in the world than catching a cab in Shanghai on a Friday night. There are plenty of them around,

Harold Mally Allambie Heights, NSW

Toni Paton Blackheath, NSW

Come to Me With arms old and scratched, a body that‘s faded, I‘m a comfort to all, the sad, sick and jaded.

I locate in a corner—ready to please; Folks are drawn to me, I put them at ease.

For aching bodies, for moans and groans Relief is with me—pleasures unknown.

I hear many stories, of highs and lows, Observing in silence- where nobody goes.

While many things change I know I‘ll live on, Remaining the same, whilst others have gone.

My purpose in life is just to be there, A comfort to all—a beloved rocking chair. m

Susan Adams Dangar Island, NSW

Scatter Night is a betrayal, a splintering of corpses as ribs catch hail.

Tin roofs are timpanis with branch fall and rainburst clatter.

Dreams fray.

Storm-water drains suck sand to the ends of the shore, bundled into crazed waves snatching more.

Dorys are frail to the onslaught, and moon is full and stares its lighting in disarray.

Mind wakes dazed.

Words are dice, climb ladders sentences wait in line unwind there is no purchase into the day succumb energy wet with weeks of rain surrender.

Birds' feathers are chains slow prey for dogs irritated with inert boats broad with water, swell edges lisp their fail.

Fast river flows its flotsam heavy current races through small ferry misses jetty confused by the powerful eddy.

Trapped in skewed silence umbrella hoods, cold coats, late.

Day is a raw ripped and thrown we walk on it upside down so much of the sky is on the ground. m

Susan Adams is an Australian poet who has been published extensively in anthologies, online and print literary journals, both in Australia and internationally. She has been read numerously on ABC Radio National. Recent publications have included Eureka Street, Eclecticism, Sugarmule (USA), Bacopa (USA), Hecate, Social Alternatives, Ascent Aspirations (ca), Cordite and The Chaffey Review (USA).

The Happy Moon I was aroused one morning from my precious sleep by the shrill call of the telephone.

Lazily answering I was greeted with ‗Good morning mum, I am feeling rather ill and wondered if you could look after Jilly today?‘ ‗Of cause darling‘ I answered (as mothers do). ‗I will be there very soon.‘ I donned my clothes, grabbed some breakfast and set off to pick up my treasure. The sun was streaming through the car windows, a glorious day, but how would we fill our time together?

I was greeted by a poorly looking daughter and a very cheerful little girl. ‗Hi Nan, can we have a picnic?‘ What a good idea I thought. On arriving home, with Jilly‘s help we packed our hampers and set off to a delightful bayside park. Several hours passed with rides on the swing, climbing ladders and walking. Intermingled with these were countless questions. ‗Why is the water so blue?, where do Skinks sleep?, how high is the sky?‘ With my almost pathetic knowledge of these things I endeavoured to give reasonable answers.

Toni Paton Blackheath, NSW When the time came to return home with a very weary little girl, we gathered our goods and left. I rang her mum, who still sounded ill and said I would keep Jilly with me for the night. The response was of grateful relief.

Jilly had a doze in the car on the way home so had restored energy on our return. We sat and read stories and had our dinner. To complete such a lovely time we went and sat on the balcony as evening closed in. There were exclamations of delight as the Kookaburras sang and the light faded, putting a different perspective on the things Jilly was so familiar with in my back yard. After sitting quietly for some time I was surprised when she asked ‗What is that big smile in the sky?‘ I looked up and there was the perfect crescent of the moon, resembling a big smile. I explained to her what the moon was and how its shapes change. After some consideration she very determinably stated ‗But I know why the moon is smiling tonight. It‘s because mummy is getting better and because we have had such a happy day. It‘s a happy moon.‘ m

32

I Believe in Me: 7 Ways for Women to Step Ahead in Confidence

by Lisa Gorman available in print from The MoshShop

Stephen Studach Katoomba, NSW

Brushed Colour has been my life.

I have always loved to paint. Mark says. ... said ... that I have a palette for a mind, frames for eyes, paint brushes, sticks of charcoal and crayon, for fingers.

He would scrutinise my face. ‗Yes—I do believe they look like little number two squirrelons your brows ... and ... double zero sable those lashes, let me see ... Or are they horsehair or camel?‘ Leaning closer he would run his lips, his tongue tip, gently along my eyebrows, making my dark bristles slicker. Then we‘d tangle, gently tangle our # 2s and double zero sables; paintbrush kisses—enraptured, tangled butterflies.

Outside, night. Painted jewel box, background of black velvet—spackled with glimmers, vibrant in lights, neon, argon, wet gems, flickers, glows, several coloured melting road stain demands; Stop, Prepare to – Go. Spectral rainbows born of oil plus light, trapped in tarmac, lancings of long headlight brush strokes, mixed perspectives, blended in shadows. The city is a sooty rubbing, running in the wet.

Closer, there is a ghost aura of rain upon the lit roofs of the houses. An anorexic corona, a slim halo of brightness, alive with millions of instants of spiked impact. The moon a crescent, like a gondolier‘s bright shining craft—or an Egyptian funeral barge. Sailing from clear break to clear break in the clouds. The sky one big, grubby, forbidding Nile of mystery.

head of the line with his pale willy peering out of the open fly of his shorts.

The infant art maestro had frowned, shrugged, and proceeded to paint that eleventh digit. Just then the teacher had returned, thus bringing an end to my budding public success. Earlier in my career, and more than once or twice, Mum would enter from some gossiping, gardening or a backyard clothes hanging to witness my gallery exhibits: earthy daubs, swipes and smudgings in excremental ochres all displayed at child-

They still creep, flow, sift, merge, mix into my paintings, those primary colours and shades of a child living on a super chameleon that ate rainbows and blushed endless colours and variants of colours and was called the world.

I even went through a synaesthesia stage, where I could taste, and smell, colours through my eyes, in my head.

Hmm, colour and taste, taste and colour. I ate colour. With my eyes. Yum. I remember, in the early eighties, how old was I? I don‘t know but it wasn‘t Auntie-Jan‘s-kitchen-table-height age, because I remember that I had to get up on a chair to see—the horses race!

Auntie Jan had a racehorse biscuit tin.

The steeds and jockeys, in an array of wonderful colours, went right around in a full circumference on the side of the big, round bickie tin. Once I was in position, kneeling on a chair herself, tin set on the flat table‘s cleared surface, Auntie Jan would give the tin a spin and—they were off! Round and round, whirling colours, straining horses, flashing silks and backgrounds, round and round and—me fixedly watching mesmerised. My horse always winning.

My prize, a biscuit from the alwayslucky-dip of that sacred tin. Satisfying ending to a ritual.

I don‘t think I ever actually looked down into that tin of treats, the highly sensitive, unmarked naked animal that was my hand reaching in, pawing about delicately, for biscuits could be delicate prey, arm at near full-stretch. Anyway, the outside of the tin was what really interested me.

on-couch height across the wall and window. The totally nude artist pleased I have painted since school and before and beaming, or in an ecstasy of then of course, if you can count preAlways painting, always colouring, paper school messes and muddles. One session chimpish giggles and couch bouncing, bare bottom revealing that her palette still and coloured pencils and paint sets for of finger-painting (teacher absent) presents. A wordless self education of runneth over. turning into literal finger paintings of countless colouring books; how I loved to other little pupils‘ little fingers, digital art My head is still full of childhood fill the spaces, the inherent choice of such courtesy of yours truly. My paintbox and colours—wooden garden sun seats and a duty, my tilt-headed concentration, and I, nigh inseparable, they lined up at four table setting with their display of the cramp of my colouring muscles. years of age to get my unique touch, all different coloured slats. Iceblocks.

Physical education for the young artist. pleased with the result. Save for Barry Favourite toys. Comics. Kaleidoscopic Pumping lead.

Michael, grimy little boy and most fireworks nights. All beloved colours, perverse for his age, who appeared at the thus I kept them, in my head and heart.

Ah, I‘m not doing too good a job at this

domestic, no—industri(al)ous painting now though. How long have I been at it?

Ten minutes, twenty, half hour—more ...

My watch is over there on the bathroom floor. Can‘t read it from here, the face is blurry to me. They say the paint fumes can get to you when you work indoors.

And I do have the windows and the door closed, and locked. But the scents of paints have never bothered me. This mix I‘m using now has a not unpleasant tang.

Rich, a little sad. Hmmm—sound like a wine taster who‘s savouring the bouquet.

Opening a red. Passing judgement. All in all I can‘t say that I regret uncorking this one.

would hang it as he held it in his rough, tradesman‘s hands. And hang it he did, in the living room where it was exhibited for fourteen years. If I‘d had a dollar for every visitor who got the ‗my daughter painted that‘ I wouldn‘t have had to become the wealthy commercial artist my Dad kept hinting I would be. Dad took it with him to the coast when he and Mum split up.

In uni art class my rep as the ‗crazy painter‘ loner kept me at the margins, but I took pride in it and was happy enough there. I took some quiet, smug satisfaction from the confusion and curiosity that my exhibits of painted bone But that pride, that pure and honest installations, my own less than subtle parental pleasure changed a little as I got facial shades of paint, my severely older and looked like being serious about bobbed black hair, like glossy starling‘s art as a career. Not a ‗real‘ career. But plumage, mix and match St. Vinnies and ‗Art‘ with a capital ‗A‘. Something that I rumour of dyed pubis and lesbian was quite serious about and committed persuasion engendered. to. You could see it, according to my The ‗crazy painter‘. folks, in my dark blue eyes from a very early age. Yes sir. Yes indeedy.

Maybe I was crazier than even I knew.

In the bath, I can see the little metal instrument that I used to open the containers, more than half painted itself now. Also, one small empty can, streaked To me ‗art career‘ is an oxymoron. Art is sides, passion‘s drooling. more a demonic possession. Or, in my Always messy—messy, messy, messy. case, an obsessive possession.

With paint, as a kid, as other kids were So bloody cold in here. with mud.

Poor Daddy. He is so far away now. But I suppose I could paint some one colour Mum and Sammy dog and Wills the cat works on this whitest of white surfaces. keep me company. Wills is at the window They‘d be painted over later anyway. now. Looking through, watching me with P‘raps I‘ll even write a poem. those calm, curious, knowing halfSiamese eyes. He‘s probably right Here I am, cleaned and set though, Dad, this brush is small (but what Painting in a medium of wet regret a big, big mess I‘ve made with it) and it‘s Dipping in the palette of what is shed and clumping very badly. what has died Cold.

Armed with brushes fisted, rowing in Also, I painted the family dog once. colour, I thought I fled Tolerant black Labrador-cross-kelpie

bitch, standing, sitting, then laying there before me, trying, half-heartedly, to get I lied, easier to sculpt in mud under away at each stage, tethered by my piping torrential falls of rain girl-child-artist pleas. Difficult, hairy, warm, wagging canvas; that creeps, Than stem such tide, swims on grass, blends painted hair with Drifting on such vivid flood, riding down painter‘s hair, tastes the artiste‘s efforts in and finds watercolours not to her lollytongued liking/licking (even though it is Whatever? OK, poet she ain‘t. water based and she is a ‗kelpie‘ as I pipe I‘m probably using too small a brush. up later to my, briefly, horrified Mum Dad always said that I had no idea about who discovers us), her smiling eyes and ‗real‘ painting. Dear old Dad, he seems to mouth; I don‘t care what anybody says, have been on hand at so many of my dogs do smile. Sammy does anyway. ‗artworks‘; like some biased, but mostly And Sammy‘s Mum Shadecloth‘s (long silent, judge. It seemed that he was standing by each time I painted anything. story) head turning to me, her smile her wagging droopy-damp tail, buoyant, even Or at least any of the important ones. I painted a chair once. He was there. Pride under the hose she was condemned to for and pleasure evident in all of those little my artistic crime. Eager to pelt and grass roll and pelt some more! gestures and demonstrations, if not so much in his sparse words. It was there in Shadecloth‘s dear face. They only hurt the easel he made me, constructing it you once, dogs. And that‘s when they over several weekends in the garden leave you. But not yet Sam, descendant shed. Wanting to buy my first ‗real‘ of Shadecloth and Chaz, you‘re still the painting, not taking no or even maybe for noble black bitch family Lab-kelpiean answer. Beaming at it in its cheap, ill cross. All white muzzled, peppered by matched frame and explaining where he I tried ...

the years, and true. Solid in more than weight, firm though tolerant with cats.

Occasional idler with Wills who is, after all, a special feline.

But if that‘s so then I like insanity. At least it is sincere.

People get caught, clogged in your mind.

Some like hairs from brushes. Others, like a log jam.

Finger-painting across his broad chest and flat belly, playing, experimenting with the vegetable based and watercolour paints on the canvas of his studio‘s sheets. That ecstatic, messy, wonderful time. Time of the brand new brush.

Saying it needs more white, and squeezing him, in slow pump, squeezing the glistening pearl drops out. The saturated tangled rainbow of his pubic area ...

Mark, so brooding and extrovert, narcissistic, obsessive, lazy. Me, so brooding and introvert. He always wanted to go out and mingle with other artists, observe the masses. I wanted to stay in and mingle with and observe each other.

That‘s what we were: Romeo and Oubliette.

Him with his angry young man mask.

My discovery, by degrees, of the hidden manifesto which he, like so many males, carried. A dumb, selfish, greedy, dumb, dumb, stupid dumb agenda, which could effortlessly turn to verbal polemic.

Man is a sexual creature, a carnivore, he said.

Yeah, well, he sure ate me up.

Chewed.

Spat.

It was the spitting out that I really didn‘t appreciate.

I‘ve seen his new meal. A blonde

33

34

Out-of-print, mint condition, author‘s remaining stock

Celluloid Dolls - Diddums, Kewpies and Other Cuties and Teddy Bears, Golliwogs and Playmates of the Past by collectible doll expert Romy Roeder Available only in print and only at The MoshShop

girl, as soft and smooth as a scoop of vanilla icecream. Dessert? I don‘t think she‘ll last long. His heat will melt her.

Though it‘s the chill that really kills.

He‘ll be on to his next entrée before her taste has left his lovely, smirking mouth.

As an artist it should have appealed to me—the simplicity of suffering. A few easy brush strokes of a concept, like Japanese calligraphy, the ease masking the complexity. But with it always is the warm pig wallow of self pity.

He was mixing oils with another, fingerpainting in my head, smudging our work in progress beyond retouching, turning it into something trite and ugly and not worth the canvas it was set upon.

I remember your last visit, your hurried kiss upon my cheek—the lighter, brief caress of one of your strands of browngrey hair, come loose from your ‗do‘.

Another brush stroking my face. But I know your tones are true, Mum, always have been. Your words to me that day— ‗Never mind, luv, it‘ll be alright.‘ No doubt already hoping for a new ‗boyfriend‘ for me, maybe even a husband, thus a grandchild by insinuation, guaranteed, before too long; a few weeks, few months, a year?

Knowing of my sleeplessness and weight loss over the past three months, your all but silent fears of anorexia. Then, your back to me—on your way out—date at Auntie Jo‘s.

For hours after I lay on my bed, lightly painting my face with virgin brush where you‘d hair-stroked me. Using the pigment of pondering misery to coat over all touches there. Bitter gouache mix stored Yet did it want to live, still did it want to in its tube till it became potent, then splash colour, but only with the strongest stored some more till it was impotent and of passions as its medium and composed no longer of tears, pus, venom collaborator. Love, respect, truth. No and regret but only the pure, transparent shadings there just basic, prime colour. crystal liquid of ‗don‘t care‘, the sweat of Ah, my current attempts at art! Never so the pearl of apathy. Care less. hard a work, nor so easy a one.

Paint it over, coat it over, all, hard My heart was framed, boxed, buried. But not dead, not quite, it still twitched, writhed in pain, deep in the sterile, barren earth I had sealed it in.

Earlier, outside, people moved and talked down on the sidewalk, not twenty metres away. Close enough to help, to advise, to suggest, close enough to pretend not to notice? Close enough for all this in here to be a secret. For now. Maybe I‘ll paint the windows as well.

touches and soft, even yours Mum. Yes even yours and Dad‘s. I‘m sorry. I‘m sorry.

How could I tell you that you‘d already had a grandson, though you‘d never met, nor would you. Unknown, in name and nature. They‘d taken him from me, with cold instruments, at my request. Laid him A while ago I heard Sam out there, in a cold steel pan. Where he is now I sniffing and snuffling her insistent nostrils along the sides and the bottom of cannot say. Nor what colour his eyes the locked door. Then she started pawing. were, nor tone of skin, nor what his laugh would sound like, nor even his cries. He Barked. I barked back. I roused on her came silent and closed eyed and still from and she went away. Whined for a while me. Sleep brutally disturbed—then to from the laundry, then went quiet. Poor sleep once more. I‘d been drugged out on Sammy. painkillers, my vision further blurred by This bathroom, first floor rear of the merciful ducts in action, running fit to house I was raised in as a middle-class empty, dry up, for all time. Do your stuff Oz girl-child-tomboy, is so white and ducts. Dead ducts. I cannot say where he cold, Mum. ‘Bout time I finally got down is now. Only, for certain, where he is not. to that redecorating I‘d always been Your grandson of one hundred and fifty warning you about. Sure—white tile and days. But it cannot be a good place. For porcelain is OK but just a little bit of there is no such place. colour—plleeeez!

Wherever he goes will he go in pieces, as Well, now you‘re living in the weekender he left? In my naivety I‘d thought it permanently what better time to start? would be like a tooth extraction under

anaesthetic. But the steel pan returned to me twice. I remember that much. Will he rest in pieces?

Oh I had wanted him so much. But I traded him for the wants of his larger looming lookalike. I assume that they would only ‗look‘ the same.

I always commemorate his deathday by completing a painting. Sometimes I try to do the whole thing, from start to finish, in one day. Working myself into a stupor.

The finished works, even the ‗sunny‘ ones, are never easy in my eye. They crawl there, like bugs. But this one, this bathroom (apt) work, is the last of that ritual.

He, the full-grown child, had bought me a fine set of paints and brushes, as reward?

There to greet me with them as I came out of my fog. Well, I suppose it beat flowers outside the clinic.

With gifts, it‘s the thoughtlessness that counts.

Worse still, I slept soundly. The flesh of my (our) flesh (broken and abused doll), easier on me than anyone ever had been. I heard no crying babies in the darkness of my sleep. My vented child had nothing to say to me. Why bother. Back turned, gone ...

I‘ve never used anything from the artist‘s set he got me. Until now.

This one is virginal no longer. Seal broken. Given up the essence of its perfect cleanliness. As I did, oh so long ago, on those studio drop sheets, a small, unique, Rorschach of vibrancy that every girl should frame (car accident for a museum) at least in her heart‘s gallery.

Mine is nailed there.

The tiny can of paint, used up long ago. I had to move on to my other supply. It didn‘t last long. Like everything to do with Mark.

Well, almost everything. I still carry one budding bouquet of his that breaks out in bloom at fairly irregular intervals. He tainted my colours. A mix of misery to paint with. Each time I see or smell its bloom, paint its angry buds with treatment, each time I mentally squeeze out its stinking purulence I see him with his smiling face, now a manikin‘s grin in

my memory. A perfect, beautiful curve of deceit hiding ... something hot and vivid and yearning ‘neath its uncracked scab, surface of perfect brush stroke that I could not see was one smooth blemish, masterfully hued crust only. Over the abstract of his truer tones.

How about some more wall poetry? wet pain There, I print it with my brush, letter dropped, missing, as if clogged in the hairs (squirrelon, sable, horse, camel, goat?), or lost by the painter‘s aphasia (aphasic stroke), on a section of wall that I intend to obliterate with the same colour.

My horse, still winning —

prime colour, the prime colour ...

A horse, a dog, a cat, of another colour ... Into the hall, my eyes tracking the colour ... Mum touches my arm. ‗Oh Oh — take me away moon, I can see the thank God, thank God you called the shadowy figure at your stern, I want to emergency line, dove, thank God, thank cross the sky to elsewhere.

God ...‘ But I really am running out ...

But I didn‘t, Mum, I try to answer, but my throat is dry, clogged, voiceless. I‘m not looking at her though, I‘m looking at the colour. The lurid, rich bright that I let Sleep ... That my spirit ran out, before my out of myself and that they are now paint pot wrists did ... trying to put back in. Looking at the colour, the colour ... *** Just know ... Here, I‘ll write it ... on the wall — my last marks before I

I see, through swimming vision, the silly stick figure of my child that I had painted earlier upon the wall on the opposite side of the room from me; painted him about we pain the size he would have been if he had Maybe I won‘t paint it out. made it to age four or five. I see it redly ripple, wave like an image set upon I wrist-wave on my colour. Taking it out water, through my lassitude I see it move. in paint.

It comes around along the bathroom wall The artist as a palette. Self portrait in to me, playful hop-skipping type movements, but weird, weird. It stops on angry hue. the wall just above the bath beside me.

But some of this colour is calm, cool, For just one second I am scared of it, as it sleepy.. . looks at me with its runny empty head.

But then, I feel a warm, almost hurtful It would appear that I have painted affection for this skinny thing that has myself into a corner. come to usher me on. I turn to it just a It has always been a satisfying feeling for little with a lazy roll of one shoulder. And me—to see the unpainted surface we stare at each other. disappearing under the colour glide.

I start to mumble something, but it puts More constructive, or destructive, I know out a finger (one of the ten slim sticks to get into his rooms, his studio and do a that I had given it), touches my lips. paint job. Let them stand and contemplate and ponder on our collaborative effort.

I feel it.

Don‘t have a key anymore though. He I feel, nothing. sent one of his friends around to pick it up. I threw it at her. Said ‗Have you With that ... I sleep ... fucked him too?‘ She slunk off. I took *** that as a ‗yes‘. I didn‘t miss her smile in retreat. But I couldn‘t destroy any art, What is this? save my own. And he is a fine artist.

Damn him double. I wouldn‘t do a job on Coming round, coming round? To be dead? the studio anyway. For fear that he wouldn‘t sign it.

No. No ... coming round to lights, to being wheeled, out of the bathroom – Oooh ... So tired. Maybe it‘s the cold.

Ooh! They bumped the doorjamb. I am Sleepy, ready for bed. Nice warm bed, under a sheet but I am not dead. I am Sammy on the covers, snuggled dog under a sheet, and restraints, not dead, blanket. I‘ve been in this position, leaning against the bath and the wall, too not dead, bandaged, bandaged — both my wrists. Tired, so tired still. Wheeled long. by two men, in uniform—ambulance ... Won‘t be able to finish my poem now. people, and another, woman, holding a Maybe I can reach it—no, too long down plastic pack with tubes dangling over me. in the one spot. Knees, legs all apathetic, She sees me looking, smiles, says crash-tackled by lassitude. But my, it is something to one of the others. ‗No, no, so cold in here now. Something to rhyme no, no, no,‘ I moan weakly through my with fled, tide, flood. Oh well. Someone unwashed paintbrush throat. Oh, and else can do it. Me, I‘m all out. there‘s Mum, poor Mum, red eyed, worried. I see two more uniforms— The tin horse biscuit barrel race is a swirl police? Hear Sammy bark, somewhere of blurred and whirling colours now — close? Nothing in sharp detail. Save the

A series of childlike stick figures, closeclose together, a mono-coloured army in wavering file along one wall and out from the bathroom into the hall, up to the phone table. ‗I didn‘t paint those ...‘ I croak sleepily.

Some of the details are very distinct, very ... vivid to me. Vivid as the still moist marks on the emergency zero of the keypad phone—still off the hook.

That would have helped ... to trace ...

Had the caller‘s voice sounded like me, like a small child, a child or a sleepy woman?

As we near the front door Mum is fussing about me, wiping at my lips with a spitmoistened hanky. I do not take in anything that she is saying, her muttering, soft, warm words. But I am calm and at peace, for I know what happened. I know that they found me in the bathroom, I know that I did not, could not, crawl out, make a call, then crawl back to the bathroom. Nor do I think that I would have enough food for my brush to have painted all those images. I wonder what sort of message they have recorded at the emergency centre ... I consider this uncaringly as I am taken out, still tasting—despite my mother‘s ministrations—my own unleashed colour, laid there in one slim print, upon my lips.

Into the front yard, up into the back of the ambulance. I will live. My decision. I will live. Because I know. Because I have seen ...

As they pack me up and into the ambulance, as I look down to one side I see Sammy wagging her tail, and the small child‘s handprint in red upon my happy dog‘s back. m Stephen Studach Katoomba, NSW

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36

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Rikki, Nikki and Connor Transmedia HEAD: codeX2 Mystery Theatre #33 storytelling‘s incomplete. Robot from Czech robota=compulsory labour deconstruction transmedia is mythvertising ANZ landscape escapades if ‗Rosen Grail‘ keyword hidden in plain sight.

My story‘s ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre of the adverb, for coming to terms with ‗how‘; when, where and why contest comprehension, as do variables. Number abstracts and when written acquire a new dimension i.e. 190=A.I. zero to my Artificial Intelligence Contact-Zero dilemma of meeting Rikki, Nikki and Connor at the pub for 2011 Rugby World Cup quarter-finals telecast. A doubleheader on both Saturday and Sunday, during Wales verses Ireland first quarter I introduced the day‘s news of a 14 year old‘s arrest in Bali for buying cannabis. Saturday October 8 is seventh anniversary of Schapelle Corby‘s arrest at Bali‘s Denpasar International Airport for importing 4.1kg of cannabis in her bodyboard bag. But saying the schoolboy‘s name influenced the situation caused conspiracy jests Saturday 22 October Final foreplays 22-10 Wales win. Then France‘s 19-12 upset over England prompts Rikki to tell a tale embodying both scores. 2010-1912=98 or 99 installation is #17 battle of sacred calendar‘s first month. January was eleventh month until Gregorian 1622 in Catholic nations, 1752 Protestant England. ‗What #17 battleground?‘ I demand, aware by the 15th Century the Julian 365.25-day solar year‘s erroneous, as Easter festivities misaligned seasons. To sustain 10 days deleted, January 1 New Year is only centurion

years 400 dividable are leap years, making 97 per 400 instead of Julian‘s 100. ‗Julian New Year was March 25, so 17th day of year‘s 10 April, being the Gregorian‘s 100th day of year with 256 days remaining.‘

Barry Walsh Griffith, NSW JACQUES [II.7.140-144] All the world‘s a stage.

And all men and women merely players; They have their exits and entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts,

‗So?‘ I challenged, uncertain of my ‗Right-Angle‘ premonition.

His Acts being seven ages.

‗January 17‘s Saint Anthony and Sulpitius the Pious feast days. SaintSulpice, Paris‘ second largest church to Notre Dame de Paris is sacred France headquarters and secretly ―The New Temple of Solomon‖. Members of its sacred Angelic Society communicate

‗You‘re at 17th Union of International Architects Congress Montreal 1990.

2011‘s your first year in the invisible, having dared visibility 2000-2010.‘

with angels and proclaim ―Christian Apocalyptic Warriors‖ to ―bring about the end of war with the arrival of the king of the world‖. Association Angelica is a right-wing group of influential people identifying Pharaoh=God concept as King=Son.‘

As You Like It eighth to tenth letter As You Lie Kit impact, Rikki‘s reply hits.

Reeling, I refrain from countering with 3@666=1998 notification of E.S.P. Bridge to the 5 Senses gives TOA*TAO visibility. ‗Being #17 initiated is no guarantee of knowing the full story.‘

Rikki nods at the pub‘s big screen, as if receiving approval. ‗Montreal was settled in 1641 as New France by Compagnie of ‗And you accuse me of conspiracy One Hundred Saint-Sulpice association. paranoia,‘ I rebuke, distracted by #17 1990-1641=349 is Magic 3 Square‘s topsquaring-corner to the adverb‘s #26 awakening. Awareness is like learning to left-corner.‘ swim or ride a bike. Slow progress is ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre to scriptI‘m confused. Rikki‘s glyph is 2011writers other than God. Shakespeare‘s a 1626=385=CHE to Vox Piscis, or Bookgreat playwright observing: fish containing 3-Treatises found in belly of cod-fish in Cambridge market on Midsummer Eve‘s

by Protestant Reformist priestwriter John Frith.

Dr Joseph Mede of Christ‘s College Cambridge saw a fishmonger find a tiny sextodecimobook gutting a codfish 23 June 1626.

Scholarship credits it to Frith‘s Tower

of London imprisonment for antiCatholic stance on purgatory and Eucharist. Refusing to recant, he‘s heretic sentenced 23 June 1533 and burnt at the stake 4 July with fellow disbeliever, tailor Andrew Hewet.

As Nikki and Connor left the pub, I did also.

for present-future dominance reflects Christchurch February 22, 2011 6.3magnitude quake killing 181 people and *** destroying much of the city. Australians call their earthquake prone trans-Tasman 17th and 100th day abstractions like neighbour the Shaky Isles. Christchurch 17+100=117 is January 17 remain unanswered. Rikki, Nikki and Connor are expects a ‗big shake‘ but 222‘s Ghost-character Chloe Speedie‘s first only interested in Sunday‘s quarterfinals, Foucault‘s Pendulum Templar documentation‘s a 21st birthday classified 1308+62=1344+666=2000 is until in-between today‘s two games I in The Canberra Times 23 April 2007. revisit the Australian schoolboy arrested 1344+444=1788[British penal colony 349‘s in Magic 3 Square and Purifying settlement Australia]=222=codeX2000. in Bali. Name transfixed, I mention Fire, but 385 lower-left‘s only the latter Lewis is a Freemason term for doorman- Christchurch first quake unknown so 381 is 1626+381=2007 context. April guard and in masonry a lifting device of faultline of Darfield epicenter, September 23 is St Georges Day and Bard of Avon‘s 4, 2010 is 94=ID to my charge, recharge, medieval times. Relevant to Ancient death on 52nd birthday. Elizabethan electrocute ID critical letterhead since Mysteries as building the Pyramids of Christenings and burials records William Egypt attest. Bracing for conspiracy jest, 2007. I asked Rikki.

Shakespeare‘s baptised 26 April 1564, Nikki surprised with glyph. buried 26 April 1616, with 3-or-4 day ‗What‘s it to 411 Rhenosterspruit gap standard practice. contingency in April 10/17 anomaly?‘ ‗349 is 70th Prime,‘ noted Rikki, explaining. ‗Montreal [Mont Royal] Canada was founded 15 October 1641, 106 years after 1535 Jacques Cartier European discovery.

Gregorian correction to Papal States was 1582, when October 15 followed 4, so Montreal aligns 16411582=59 is 17th Prime.‘

‗Chicago‘s codeXX2000,‘ I gather Nikki‘s abstracting Australia beat South

Flabbergasted, I‘m aware 106 is a Rosicrucian secret entity, as founder Christian Rosenkruez‘s born 1378[13@106] and died 1484[14@106]. ‗Magic 3 Square 492 top-row reverse as 294th Prime 1931294=1637 Fermat‘s Last Theorem. 1637 as 258th Prime is Purifying Fire‘s diagonal to other‘s 654-365[days]=289=172,‘ added Rikki.

Africa 11-9. Montreal aligns 9-11 Time Pyramids as 45+75=120 year Settlements, whose 11-9 structure abstracts ‗Sustainable Cities with 2020 ‗What?‘ I‘m lost in 70 and 106 numeric-7 vision‘ Resolution of 18th UIA Congress 2 aligns Chloe‘s C49=7 corner.

Chicago 1993. codeX2000 to Montreal is Umberto Eco novel Foucault‘s Pendulum ‗258=YH York Hunt and 365-258=107 666 new millennium diabolical plot‘s a as day-of-year is 17 April, the 17th day miscalculation of sacred in plain sight.

Julian‘s first month juxtapose January‘s Chicago ‗2020 vision‘ infers Montreal St Sulpice is Angelica code.‘ support or opposition. Nikki‘s reply ‗10 and 17 can‘t both be Julian‘s 17th shocks. day,‘ I‘m aware April‘s second month. ‗TOA with 2020 vision aligns Tech ‗7 day discrepancy is 411 stockmarket April 17, 2000 crash.‘ Rhenosterspruit contingency to the sextet 6-tier Time Pyramid installed 2000 to at Canberra‘s Watergate axis mundi,‘ rendezvous Chicago‘s 2020 vision aligns replied Rikki, with ‗Until the third and fourth quarterfinals‘ departing comment. a bubble ready to burst, but April 17‘s unbelievable. Hidden agendas fighting

But Nikki said, ‗3 August 2011 collarbomb dirkstraun1840@gmail.com email to USB extortion of Sydney schoolgirl is ransom note architecture.‘ I‘m Australia lead South Africa 8-3 at halftime spellbound.

Accused Paul ‗Doug‘ Peters set-up the email account in Chicago on May 30 and didn‘t check or use it until 65 days later on August 3, when he‘s on CCTV accessing it once at Kincumber Library and twice at Avoca video shop on NSW midcoast. Dirk Straun is protagonist in James Clavell‘s Tai-Pan novel, which begins 26 January 1841 British settlement of Hong Kong, being Montreal‘s bicentenary year. But fourth quarterfinal stops me asking if Peters‘ 1840 implies Montreal bicentenary as installation architecture. I watch dazed.

3 August‘s 38 is Chloe Speedie‘s CHE consistency, Peters is described as an Australian parading as Englishman.

CHA=381 is 1626+381=2007 of Chloe Speedie classified. CHA to my letterhead‘s ‗charge‘ interplays ‗rge‘ to ‗erg‘ of New Zealand Institute of Architects Conference Christchurch 1987, weeks before October‘s stockmarket crash, that I included in Uncanny A*topia Fiction 1988 fourth centurion 1588 Regiomontanus ‗doomsday-prophecy‘ Comet, an

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‗So?‘ I ask. 10 June is 106 and 1926 is tercentenary Vox Piscis.

Peters‘ May 30 email setup in Chicago is 2011-1593=418th anniversary of playwright/Walsingham-spy Kit Marlowe ritual right-eye stabbing at Eleanor Bull lodging house. The myth he departed Deptford on ship Peppercorn to establish Contact-Zero spy safe-haven‘s revived

by SOE agents compromised in WWII occupied countries without hope of rescue. Elizabethan theatre was rife with 1588 espionage game-play.

‗2-rows break ―consecutive numbers without repetition‖ rule. Number hidden in plain sight to 33-10 is 14.‘

Worst of all, my Right-Angle premonition‘s returned in Tai-Pan‘s opening scene coincides three month old news arriving from Britain is of cholera outbreak. CHOLERA is CHLOE RightAngle. Thus I‘m slow to New Zealand beat Argentina 33-10 reflects Nikki‘s glyph is a special Magic 4 Square of 33 secret number instead of 1-thru-16‘s standard 34.

Its in Gaudi‘s The Temple of La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, but is it the Spanish

‗organic‘ architect‘s key signature in dying mysteriously June 10, 1926 after being hit by a tram three days earlier.

Due his ragged attire and empty pockets, taxi drivers refused to take him to hospital, until eventually taken to a pauper‘s hospital.

Barcelona Cathedral‘s still being completed by others as he left no blueprints. ‗No 12 and 16, but two@10 and 14,‘ hints Nikki.

‗What?‘ I‘m stumped by 14 to John Frith‘s 33rd year of 16th Century, if 23 June conviction to 4 July execution‘s 11 days is 12 inclusive as 10‘s other.

If Rikki, Nikki and Connor were surprised by 218 Latin Square, they didn‘t show it. Instead Nikki said ‗182 Greek Cross is first of six steps‘ and left the pub. The other two followed, Rikki asking ‗But is it 411 contingency to the sextet at Canberra‘s Watergate axis mundi?‘, without waiting for an answer. ***

A lot transpires in six days and doubts set in realising 2011 Rugby World Cup Final is Sunday 23 October, not 22 as Rikki claimed. But arriving at the pub for first Speechless to how Nikki knows my semifinal Saturday 15 October, ‗paired‘ workings, I can only nod. preparations are upturned finding Rikki, ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre exhibit#966 Nikki and Connor celebrating backing [322+223+232+189] Southern Speed in the Caulfield Cup. ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre exhibit#977 Drinks are on them and we discuss rumours of Lewis Mason asking locals to [322+223+232+198] score disputing sting setup, fake social 198 hides in plain sight. 777+189=966 media releases from him while in police but 777+200=977, so 2-MR [missed custody and various opinions on rendezvous] as Foucault‘s Pendulum Indonesian law. premise to Templar ‗miss‘ 1584 I voice suspicions to mainstream media rendezvous due 1582 Gregorian‘s 10 days between Catholics and Protestants. I reports police prosecution are basing their hadn‘t considered 198=33@6 to Magic 4 case on him flagging down taxis with the drugs bragging his score. Taxis avoided Square is six directions of right angle points of the compass and up and down. him until one contacted police. Naiveté isn‘t to be underestimated, but ‗taxi‘ is T‗1/14/14/4 row reconfigured is Architecture-11 catchcry for 11-tier Time 141414/777=182 and 182x143=26026.‘ Pyramid to 2064 rendezvous. The game started and for 40 minutes we watched Nikki insights 777x143=111111 maths phenomenon all XYXYXY digits are 777 rugby, until Connor showed the halftime score of France leading Wales 6-3 -divisible and all XYZXYZ digits 143reflects Magic 3 Square secret numbers. divisible, i.e. 026026/143=182. 143 ‗I Love You code‘ coined by Reverend Fred Rogers, an American children‘s TV host who weighed 143lbs for 30 years, long before the texting age. He died of stomach cancer 27 February 2003 abstracts 272nd day of leap year 28 September as 289=172. Keeping 2003‘s a two year MR to current 272 visibility as contingency, I showed glyph. ‗6@33=198 aligns ―oneninety‖ Mystery Theatre.‘

Realizing 15[numeric]=6 and 12 [numeric]=3, I‘m Magic 3 Square of 0-to-8 digits captivated. 246column abstracts 24 June St John‘s Day which with St John‘s Eve the Templar and other sacred orders held in high esteem, while its 048 cross 20th century aligns UIA 1948 inauguration in Lausanne.

But what resonates is its Purifying Fire 4/6interchange, as 418 bottom -right-corner aligns Peters‘ email

in Chicago with Marlowe‘s murder. My ‗whose wearing what‘ second half thoughts intensified with Connor‘s ‗9 Spaces of the 8 Dimensions Sensed‘ remark on France beating Wales 9-8.

It‘s my 1995 unfinished submit to The Juice, an architectural competition for a memorial garden design of The End, Los Angeles, based on the OJ Simpson trial.

A long story and although it‘s international news, I attended the concurrent trial of David Bain, accused of murdering his parents and three siblings in Dunedin. I asked. ‗How d-you know?‘ ‗UIA 2011 Tokyo‘s DESIGN2050,‘ replied Connor. ‗What?‘ My mind‘s hyperactive. A 9 Spaces of the 8 Dimensions Sensed remnant exists in 41st blueprint proposition one of Shakespeare‘s 38 plays, two lost or unknown play deciphers master-plans at work. The Titans are no longer Greek myths.

Human intent with technology is playing God disguised as acts of Mother Nature wrecking havoc on the unsuspecting majority, leaving most accepting their plight is God‘s will. I‘m not a Luddite as invention is a human attribute for betterment and believe there‘s a dimension describable as God, but it doesn‘t dismiss master-plans are embedding a master-race of New World Order. Magic codes technology like in the past.

Connor tabling glyph reflects my mind belatedly achieving the insight.

DESIGN2050. Whether original intent or even present at late September conference I‘ll never know, but I‘d kept it to myself until now it‘s presented to me. ‗3-Square back and forth 2022=TV is Operation Trojan Horse Surveillance graphic you established in 2000 to codeX2000, defies Bain/Bard difference INRD less Arcadia code‘s RN is ID,‘ said Connor, departing.

I protest contingencies as part of architectural practice, but they won‘t listen, Rikki asking if ‗It‘s 411 contingency to Watergate axis mundi‘ and Nikki adding ‗182 Greek Cross is first of six steps‘, neither waiting for a reply. *** Sunday 16 October‘s early evening Australia versus New Zealand semi-final has Rugby League Test between the two nations as TV curtain-raiser played in Newcastle. Rikki, Nikki and Connor were at the pub late afternoon and at halftime, Australia leading 26-nil, they said it‘s my turn to tell a story. ‗52x5=260 Mayan calendar to two sacred and 260260/143=1820=35@52,‘ I began, wondering if they knew of 52=VB=222.

Thoughts I know were decimated with 3@666=1998 ‗bookshop incident‘ courtcase, but are they OTHS. I probe by changing tack. ‗Australia‘s only fatal earthquake was 13 deaths Newcastle 5.6 magnitude December 28, 1989. Nine died at inner-city Newcastle Workers‘ Club and three at Hamilton suburb Kent Hotel, when older brick-construction façade collapsed. Thirteenth victim‘s from shock. NWC‘s tilt-slab firewall fell-over and two-storey concrete floors concertina to basement carpark. Crowded House were playing NWC that night to a full house of 2,000 and schools closed for Christmas holidays. What do you know of Chloe Speedie?‘

police. USAF deputy-commander RAF Bentwaters-Woodbridge bases Charles Halt verified second sighting.

Rendlesham Forest was destroyed in 1987 storm.‘ ‗Where‘s its story to ghost-character possibilities?‘ asked Nikki. ‗41x813=33333: November 28‘s 332nd day of year plus 33 is Leap Year‘s 33333.‘ Believing its ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre, I said. ‗December 28 has three days remaining and fourth New Year invisibility. Newcastle quake is 1990 Montreal installation and Rendlesham UFO‘s 1981 inverse 1681=412.‘ Second half begins before probing 1981 reverse 1891 hoax of priest Berenger Sauniere‘s treasure-map renovating Rennes-le-Chateau parish church with inverted pillar and 1681 tomb connects Saint-Sulpice and Priory of Sion 1956 forgery. Thoughts of divining are unsettling. Rugby scores aren‘t rigged, at least not in exactitude, but it‘s not science. 52=VB=222: I recall Osama bin Laden‘s killed during SEAL Team Six‘s May 2‘s codename Geronimo early morning raid on Abbottabad mansionhideout only US loss was a previously unknown ‗Stealth‘ Black Hawk helicopter. Déjà vu mechanical problems failed 1980 Iranian hostage rescue, but downing US helicopter on Saturday August 6, 2011 killing 22 SEALs from Team Six unit‘s an intel setup.

A captured wife said in five years Osama never left the top two floors, al-Qaeda‘s split in two and financially bankrupt. It‘s a no-brainer the world‘s a better place without bin Laden, but I feel a greater game-plan‘s at play, as compound information shows al-Qaeda plans from February 2010 to tilt a train into a valley or off a bridge. Attacking America‘s train network for 911‘s 10th anniversary didn‘t happen but Valley/Bridge is VB=222 and/or 52.

‗First, can you prove its human intent?‘ asked Rikki.

Early 1990s I bought fourX for a mate in Auckland, a costly import beer in VB happy-hour. Coincidence or OTHS: not ‗December 28 is Innocents Day and being wealthy, Montreal‘s 6-tiers is VB quake hitting 10.28am is December‘s 41-years structure of math‘s 40 addition/ aligned when briefing abstracts fourX, or Decagon=10,‘ I replied, adding, ‗It‘s subtraction has unlimited application, and ninth anniversary of Rendlesham Forest made me a fool. Certainly I‘m a fool, but even though I should‘ve applied it to Gillard‘s Vox Piscis alignment is UFO 26 and 28 December 1980. UK‘s 2010, I‘m unaware until reflected in 24th Roswell, it‘s witnessed by USAF military uncanny, as Pakistan‘s powerful Joint UIA Congress Tokyo 2011‘s theme

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Chiefs of Staff Committee General Wynne was in Canberra on day of bin Laden‘s death and for three days after. Pakistan claims its proof they‘re unaware of his whereabouts, America rejects it, and I think it reflects Opposition leader Tony Abbot to ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre.

denominator, in the ‗encryptiondecryption‘ context of Alice messages Bob knowing Eve‘s intercept is preferably without decipherment, I read the list.

Architecture theory has practice. XXXX inspired 40=41 Time Pyramid of 52=32+42 diamonds. I‘m floored by Australia‘s 42-6 Rugby League win is ‗septet/sextet‘ insight, hallucination, I‘m uncertain, but Watch This Space saying ‗545‘s my coding and 4@545=2180‘ seemed real as 7x6=42.

The Art of the Matter

The Veteran The Miracle The Citizen Whispering Wind

I choose The Miracle as it‘s about the Siena, and storyteller Italo Calvino died in a Siena hospital September 19, 1985 ‗What?‘ I bewilder, realising 545 is after admitted ‗stroke-victim‘ September Watch This Space but not what 2180 as 6. The Nobel Prize for Literature 10th power is of con218ad Julian contender was due to deliver Charles calendar interface of Harold Camping‘s Eliot Norton Lectures, Harvard. He‘d Radio Family End Times for 21 October completed five of six essays, post2011 after five months of disease and humorously published as 6 Memos to the disasters. Camping left the Baptist Next Millennium, each dedicated to a Church in 1988 to take his Radio Family particular ‗art and values of writing‘ audience to its destiny. First predicted for aspect. I experienced this concluding September 1994, Camping inbuilt a sixth memo titled ‗consistency‘ as The contingency for 21 May 2011 Rapture, as STIFF Code that Rests in .. ? followers left jobs and sold possessions The Miracle‘s setting is 1975 Palio, to preach Christianity‘s second coming, doomsday. May 21 wasn‘t the big quake which I know is Siena‘s 16 August to God‘s chosen people departure so they annual historic horse race around Piazza del Campo between Contrade or Districts now believe Rapture and End Times as of Siena. Palio‘s Romeo code, not one. Sum 1-thru-17=153 and Verona as Shakespeare tells. Verona 3 3 3 1 +5 +3 =1+125+27=153; The Bible‘s celebrates Juliet‘s birthday as 16 John 21:11: Simon Peters went up, and September, but it‘s 16 August, the day drew the net to land full of great fishes, after Pi-fraction‘s 227th day of year‘s 2 one-Hundred-and-Fifty-three. 10 =one 2 hundred and 17+6 =fifty-three. 153=9x17 August 15 Madonna Assunta. Elvis‘ 16 August 1977 death is ‗banana-onion and 122+32=153: 21 May Rapture to 21 sandwich‘ 228th day of year is 229th leap October End is 153 days. year code. Proof of calendars conflict is ‗Today‘s Friday 21 October playoff Madonna Assunta‘s Christian PiAustralia verses Wales has begun,‘ fraction‘s 22/7 is Magdalene Day 22 July. informs Watch This Space.

I consult my notes.

1582 Gregorian correction. 15821476=106 and 3@62=106 when interlocked. Porta‘s R and J reworks Masuccio Salernitano‘s 1476 ThirtyThird Story set in Siena of Mariotto and Giannozza‘s secret marriage. Their families aren‘t feuding but Mariotto‘s banished and story‘s similar. Giannozza goes to find Mariotto in Alexandria.

Miscommunications, Mariotto returns to Siena and beheaded by soldiers.

Giannozza joins a convent.

Shakespeare used Arthur Brooke‘s 1562 R and J poem, an English translation of Matteo Bandello‘s 1554 R and J, as major source. 2@777=1554. Before TRex pop-star fame, Mark Bowland‘s alias to Marc Bolan September 16, 1977 car crash death.

Learning BOB‘s story is set July 2, I recall the Palio‘s run twice a year. On special occasions there are three Palios, the last being September 9, 2000 aligns missed rendezvous The STIFF Code as ‗Metaphysical Tomb @4-Corners‘. The Miracle‘s a story-within-story with flashback to exactly 31 years earlier and a German surgeon‘s work to save Nazi and Allied wounded in Siena during 1944 German retreat of Italy, when visited by a 16th century nun as mise-enbyme. With conclusion questioning a miracle, I‘m surprised to discover Watch This Space has just read a Frederick Forsyth story. ‗Why July 2?‘ I ask, re-gathering my surroundings I realise it‘s the Bronze Final, Australia leading Wales 7-3 at halftime.

‗Papa Hemingway topped himself at his Ketchum, Idaho home, July 2 1961, 20 years after Cuban escapade posing as agent-08 during WWII searching U-boats I‘m about to dispute it‘s the second Shakespearean earthquake debate July 31 landing Nazi infiltration America as semifinal, but on the pub‘s big screen it‘s Lammas Eve or August 1 Lammas Day Literature Nobel Prize allegory The Old red jerseys of Wales, not All Blacks Man and the Sea. He‘d flight tickets to to whether the wet nurse refers to Juliet against gold jerseys, reminds New attend Pamplona‘s July 7 Saint Fermin‘s or her own daughter Susan is Zealand beat Australia 20-6 after 14-6 at Boobquake‘s Capulet anagram Cup-tale Encierrro running of the bulls he‘d made halftime. I lapse in a comatose state. to ALICE message‘s BOB ‗Car 54 where famous.‘ are you?‘ ‗Pamplona in July story,‘ I startle 88* ‗Choose a story?‘ asks an unknown identity I‘ll call BOB, deciding I must be ALICE as 14@6=84 years Inflation Period of BOB and EVE and 20@6=120 years Settlement of ALICE and BOB to the Benzene Seal. As BOB‘s common-

In Luigi Da Porto‘s 1530-novella, the Venetian Republic Captain claimed a bowmen, Pellegrinoda da Verona, told him the true story, but Juliet‘s September 16 birthday‘s 259th day of year and 106 remaining is Rosicrucian, 52 years before

Hemingway‘s witnessed account of a trampled victim he reported as himself.

It‘s annually celebrated with Ernest Hemingway‘s look-a-like contest at Sloppy‘s Joe‘s bar, Key West, Florida,

his favorite USA bar started in 1981, 20 years after his death.

now comprising part of the Australian federal city.‘

1981 is 412=1681 reverse and Hemingway‘s 1961 suicide‘s first three digits is 142=196 and 132=169 is 1691 reverse to 196+169=365-days-per-year.

Saint Fermin was beheaded in Reims, France on 25 September, his Feast Day and July 7 reflects Sept=7 25=7-numeric.

Running of bulls and horse races confused, Watch This Space‘s reply alarms.

‗What‘s this to August 16?‘ I demand, unable to comprehend ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre of the adverb.

‗July 2 is 29+16=45-days, being 46 attending two Palio‘s aligns Psalm 46 of KJV Bible‘s 46th word from beginning and end is ‗shake‘ and ‗spear‘.

PAPA=161161/143=1127+400=1527 Matthew Bible‘s same Psalm-46. Palio/ Pamplona difference I-MPNA anagram‘s IN-MAP reminds Elizabethan soldiercourtesan Philip Sidney‘s Arcadia narrative poem‘s first use of name Pamela, as Pamela/Pamplona difference E-PON is OPEN. Codespeak proof is Psalm/Pamela difference SEA aligns Calvino 6th memo ―consistency‖.‘ ‗Aware Sidney‘s sister Mary Herbert finished Arcadia poem after her brother‘s killed in Netherlands and Hebrew translated the Psalms between Matthew and KJV Bibles,‘ I ask. ‗Pamela reverse is ―alemap‖ but what‘s Pamela/Palio difference MEA-IO?‘ ‗If U=M, it‘s the vowels AEIOU.‘ ‗U‘s therefore any letter,‘ I protest, as the pub erupts in cheer to Australia winning the Bronze Final 21-18. ‗Double-U codespeak is written W, the inverse of M abstracts poetry. 7-3 halftime score as 73x29=2117=UQ to 2118=UR confirming Eco‘s The Name of the Rose novel ―QUatUoR‖ secret-library chamber coding your 2184/2244 EQUUS cipher interface.‘ Watch This Space then disappeared, as if never being there. ***

‗Are you Julian or Gregorian time?‘ asked Connor. ‗Today‘s October 16.‘

constructing a lake pier out at Watergate axis mundi, as concave-shape juxtaposes its convex building.‘ I‘m dumbfounded and unprepared for Connor‘s conclusion. ‗Watergate axis mundi is the legendary ―Solomon‘s Spring‖ pertaining numerous myths, from physical and spiritual intention to actual composition.‘

‗What?‘ I gasp. Romeo and Juliet were Lectors, their miscommunications due the Dizzy, I‘m uncertain if I‘ll be sick or Alexandria Library‘s destruction. blackout, perhaps both. ‗You asked of ghost characters to 411 Rhenosterspruit contingency at *** Canberra‘s Watergate axis mundi?‘ Rikki ‗What‘s Bronze Final insight to tonight‘s cites my drunkenness to Australia winning the League and New Zealand the final?‘ asks Watch This Space.

Union. ‗Canberra‘s first ghost was Robert ‗21-18,‘ I‘m uncertain, as on the pub‘s Campbell‘s granddaughter Sophia big screen the game‘s between finalists Campbell, who died 30 May 1885, falling France and New Zealand. from her first floor bedroom window, ‗462=2116=UAF is Uncanny A*topia aged 28.‘ Fiction 2-MR to 2118 is your building ‗Suicide?‘ I question. 1885-1593=292nd mountain as learning institution to anniversary Marlowe‘s death. Do I know architecture in landscape construction.‘ the Bronze Final score?

462=2116=UAF surprises. The nuclear ‗Death certificate says apoplexy, a age is capable of rendering planet Earth cerebral hemorrhage of stroke victims. unsustainable to life as we know it and It‘s rumored Sophia suicided after sprouted new meaning to ‗bunker becoming pregnant to Duntroon‘s construction‘. Uncanny A*topia Fiction‘s gardener,‘ replied Nikki, adding, ‗182 accompanying graphic was Pieter Greek Cross is first of six steps.‘ Bruegel‘s Tower of Babel painting.

Nimrod‘s supervising construction. ‗Romeo and Juliet‘s a haunted house?‘ I Whether Nimrod and Asshur are the need another drink. 1833 is third same person as many contend, or tercentenary Frith‘s execution and different people, is Asshur/Shure reputed writing Vox Piscis. 1885difference AS/E to R-N arcadia-code is 1833=52.

ARSEN of order-4 Magic Hexagon. Sum ‗2011-1885=126: Duntroon House 1-thru-36=666 and Babylonians knew bedroom definitely is,‘ Connor Magic 6 Square of 111 secret number. calculated. ‗1912-1885=27: 1912 town Sum 3-thru-39=777 also known for plan right-angle axes sights three millennia and 111@777=777 so order 4 mountains, has the anomaly of Walter Magic Hexagon potential, but it wasn‘t Burley Griffin‘s town plan showing until Zachary Arsen‘s internet disclosure concave axes crossroads whereas in the public domain. architect-wife Marion Mahoney‘s visuals show convex rendering and Watergate entitlement. A conundrum as LC=Shure transition‘s 1981-82 and construction‘s a straight water-axis Lake ‗stylus‘ derived, being Asshur/Shure Burley Griffin at land-axis junction, and without LC connection, as my 2001 Federation compounded in submission didn‘t disclose realsite has

‗Canberra‘s oldest building, present-day Duntroon House at Royal Military College, was built in 1833 by merchant shipper Robert Campbell after granted land

41

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available in hard cover only from The MoshShop includes CD of songs by Reece Kirk Mount Nimrod neighbour. New Zealand leading France 5-0 at halftime reflects Watch This Space‘s reply. ‗2116+5=2121=YUU: ―oilop‖ code UFO.‘

fourth MBM and TDT are palindromes, so decrypts BPUTBI letter-number encodes differences:

Have I three sisters unknown? Is ‗h‘ anomaly of June Witaker-Hodges a typeset error aligning HEAD: codeX2 Mystery Theatre #33 storytelling. Concentrating 2-16-21-20-2-9 on Rose and Gail as coding, I‘m 14-5-1-18-7 surprised Rosen spell-checks, finding it‘s Another oversight‘s not realising 777 9-4-17-11 ‗consisting of roses‘, as Grail is the quest working YUU: ‗oilop‘ code UFO to 8th 5-13-6 of many sacred orders, not least R-N Osaka Design Competition 1996-7.

8-7 arcadia disclosing Rose and Gail is Brief‘s YUU is Year 2121 and ‗Regiomontanus was poisoned in Rome 8 Rosen Grail. Shock, horror, Rosen 1344+777=2121. Its Eureka‘s July 1476, Gregorian‘s 189th day is abbreviates Christian Rosenkruez is 534+666+777=1977 wavelength as Ohio ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre exhibit#966 Rosicrucian founder.

State University‘s Big Ear radio telescope [322+223+232+189], but ‗wow signal‘ 15 August 1977 SETIwhat‘s August 7 anomaly 6EQUJ5 alphanumeric code‘s alternative?‘ I reply, leaving 6EQUJ5=EQUUS, if UJ=UU and 5=S. much unsaid. ‗au‘ aligns Shakespeare‘s Henry VIII ‗Factors are key,‘ cautioned original title All Is True anagrams Atreus Watch This Space, ill, as late 19th century discovery of Troy departing. reaffirmed Trojan War Greek leader Agamemnon‘s the House of Atreus. *** Myths include Pallas of Troy escaped to ‗Thought we‘d lost you,‘ found Rome. Henry VIII split Britain said Rikki, Nikki or Connor, picking me Reminded of transmedia is mythvertising with the Roman Church in 1534, a first up off the floor. b-LOOM aligns ANZ landscape escapades ‗archetype‘ millennium Eureka Gematria‘s 534 is 1584/1644 soLOMOn codex.

With much prerequisite‘s Robot from Czech 52=32+42 Pythagoras theorem. Atreus unresolved, we arrange to meet for next robota=compulsory labour anagram‘s tres au of Earth to Sun Friday‘s Bronze playoff and Sunday‘s deconstruction, I ponder Czech oral ‗astronomical unit‘ of planetary distances Cup Final. I sit awhile after they leave, rendition ‗check‘ to written code was calculated with 1761/1769 transits realizing ikki=119911 is 191-voyage to R configuring ‗Contact-Zero CHE‘ to after Halley of Comet fame‘s 1716 used -N arcadia coding, but uncertain of Purifying Fire sacred architecture. intermediary body Venus. 1769 included Connor‘s decipherment. Do they connect Cook‘s Tahitian observation after Kepler ‗Work-in-progress‘ imagination or not, I to August 7 Bloomsday X-factor? predicted 1631/1639 transits. Foucault‘s leave the pub transfixed by turning over Pendulum novel explores ‗666‘ scenarios August 7‘s Julian‘s sextet-septet, but if the classified reveals the handwritten as characters try to find out or are fakes. Regiomontanus is July 8 alternative, I note: Police inspector De Angelis finds tres need Gregorian‘s 219th insight. ‗BFR=ZAH=261H,‘ Chloe interrupts. codename‘s key, but his family‘s Suddenly it hits. 10x19=190 so ‗Before-ray‘s sacred before daylight.‘ threatened, he‘s rural station demoted and 11x19=209 is X-factor 219, and whatever trail, true or false, is lost. ‗Right-Angle‘ premonition Robocop‘s sidekick is ED-209 robot with My informs its Chloe Speedie‘s OP-ED Mind a-jumble, New Zealand won the a screw missing. ED=54 to ‗Car 54 where ghost-character verification, but not are you‘, except it‘s only half the contact 2011 Rugby World Cup, 8-7. what it‘s to Australia winning the code, without their interconnection. ‗8-7 Bloomsday‘s X-Factor code,‘ League and New Zealand the Union. reminds Watch This Space.

I remember Watch This Space‘s caution.

PAPA=161161 composite‘s KJV 1611 and 61‘s year of Hemingway‘s suicide.

61‘s Australia‘s International Telephone Code and 2061 is Halley‘s Comet next appearance. Frieze: Vitruvian Wave 161 Architecture to James Joyce‘s Ulysses novel Part I three chapters form acrostic code Stately; You; Inelectable as S=19; Y=25; I=9, is 19-25=6; 25-9=16 June 16 Bloomsday. Part II‘s 12 chapters acrostic code reads: Mr By Martin Before Pineapple Urbane The Bronze I The Deshil The. As four triplets, first and

209‘s sacred as 61+52+43+34+25+16=209, so there‘s other dimensions to Contact: Computer Modeling being beyond speculation. It‘s when I see an envelope on the table. Is it a dead-letter-drop?

Opening it I find The Canberra Times March 14, 2007 Public Notice classified:

Then there‘s the uncanny twilight experience of Watch This Space‘s 545 transgressions into next weekend‘s finals, as I reconsider ‗oneninety‘ Mystery Theatre of the adverb as 1289 is 209th prime. 20111289=722, being 723 installation toprow Magic 3 Square of secret number Is it addressed to me? If June codes 6, 12. It‘s only part of the story living then Pi-date‘s 4th anniversary significant to me, while Magic 3 Square‘s 12 secret transmedia. m number following Purifying Fire format is 6-4 interchange.

Barry Walsh Griffith, NSW

Tracey Smith Sawtell, NSW

Wine and Rose Petals From within a corner, of my mind, there is a memory, that settles.

It tells of ice cold, winter morns, of blackened, steaming kettles.

Of soft, warm hugs and kisses, from old hands, tired and worn While struggling for a better life, their spirits, flagged and torn.

From a young girl‘s face, in the mirror, once alive, with hopes and dreams Is an old one, creased with worry, for how long ago, it seems Far, from their days of childhood, when life, was so carefree With Sunday picnics, after church, down by the old oak tree.

And those hands, once young and supple, now wrinkled and stooped with age Yet strangely warm, and comforting, the mix, of lemon and sage.

For they have seen, the rearing of children they have endured, the ravage of war Those hands, now folded and resting, they will not be felt, anymore.

Except in the corner, of my mind, where their memory, it settles A gift from God, of eternal love, of wine and rose petals. m

Michele Fermanis-Winward Leura, NSW

The Black Wind Climbing over wires that kept us from the bush, we thread along smooth tracks fresh graded on the ridge.

How storm has changed it all, a canopy once dense—now sparse, huge gums torn from the ground resisting gale force winds.

They lost what little hold tied them to shelves of stone, or snapped along their trunks exposing russet hearts of raw and splintered wood.

Long ribbons of shed bark weave through the bush below, with lines of saplings spun from life and hope of growth.

As mounds of leaf engulf the path we tread upon. m

43

44

Paris in Black The latest anthology from Paris Portingale Just $2.99 in PDF or epub at The MoshShop Welcome to the first instalment of the world‘s first ‗breadcrumb novel‘: Art and the Drug Addict‘s Dog by Paris Portingale

Paris is the former writer-in-residence for Narrator Magazine Blue Mountains. He is a prolific story-teller with a different take on the minutiae of life.

Here Paris brings you the story of Art Handel, a man with a mission, trust issues and a Stop-Rite SG87 stun gun. Combine these with a dog acquired from the local drug addict, his long-term friend Minnie Fielding who is under attack from an unknown stalker, his other friend, Alex Elinsky, who sees dead people, and a contract he just can‘t complete, and suddenly Art is under a lot of pressure!

The second instalment of Art and the Drug Addict‘s Dog will appear in the first issue of Narrator Magazine Vic/Tas due out on 1 March 2012.

But if you can‘t wait until then, you can follow it in daily instalments on the Art and the Drug Addict‘s Dog Facebook page at www.facebook.com/artandthedrugaddictsdog or buy the print, PDF or epub from The MoshShop at www.themoshshop.com.au.

But for now, please enjoy the first instalment, from Paris, with love ...

Art and the Drug Addict’s Dog PROLOGUE There were policemen, three in their uniforms and one in a suit. The suit policeman was in charge and he spoke in one to five word sentences. I heard him say, ‗Get the door there sergeant,‘ (a long one), and ‗Fuck that,‘ (a short one), ‗You,‘ (probably the shortest), and out in the car park, lighting a cigarette, ‗What a fucking mess,‘ (medium to long). There was an ambulance, Nolan the driver, Phil his assistant, and a stretcher without wheels because stretchers with wheels hadn‘t been invented yet. Which was why Nolan had Phil: because one man can‘t carry a stretcher—the physics make it impossible.

hotel there was a sprinkling of customers who‘d stopped drinking briefly, then resumed again.

Nolan and Phil were taking the stretcher out the back way. Nolan had parked out the front initially but the suit policeman told him to bring the ambulance around the back to the car park because he was in charge, and so Nolan left the siren on because it was his ambulance.

There will always be conflict in any situation where more than one person is involved. And the more people the greater the potential for back-biting and name calling and you only have to look at the two big ones from the twentieth century, the two which had pretty much everyone involved, even the Swiss in There was a lot of blood of course, and other grey stuff, and it was concentrated their own funny little way, if you see on two walls, most dense in the corner, in what I mean. The Great War, and then the next one, when they started the V where they met. numbering them, to avoid confusion There was Cath the cook, crying in the further down the track, because it was kitchen, and up in the main bar of the

Paris Portingale becoming clear they weren‘t going to stop there.

My father was there but he had only a peripheral involvement, he didn‘t have a speaking part. Cath the cook had lines but you couldn‘t understand them and later in the afternoon, while getting the corned beef on, because people have to eat no matter what else is going on, she threw an epileptic fit and the barman had to be brought down to put a spoon handle in her mouth to stop her swallowing her tongue.

I myself was feeling a mix of emotions: guilt, because in a way it was my fault (I was certainly up there near the top of the cast list anyway), and a sort of dry anger at the universe which had turned on me when I was still all young and unprepared. I'd never thought it would do that. Now I had trust issues. ~~~

the size of fists. He wanted thirty dollars change.‘ And he trotted off down the for him. He looked desperate and the dog street and tripped on something and fell What if, when you die, as a special looked desperate as well, sitting on the and picked himself up and turned around surprise to both the believers and the nonstreet corner beside him on the end of a and did a thumbs up. There was blood believers alike, you didn‘t shuffle off to a piece of rope. Rainbow obviously needed starting to run down the side of his face heaven in the clouds to meet up with a drug of some sort when he stopped but he was smiling reassuringly at me and Mum and Aunty Ellie and the kid that me—his forehead was perspiring and it he went off around the corner. I squatted used to kick the crap out of you at was twelve degrees Celsius. His hair was and ran my hand over the dog and he school? Or, in the event that you were greasy and his hands were shaking and he snorted and shook his head. You could bad enough during your lifetime, a trip smelled of urine and stale sweat and feel his ribs, he was so thin. I waited a down in the red elevator to the caves of something else unpleasant. I told him to while, not really expecting Rainbow to fire? Or if you were just so-so, a little bit bugger off and walked on home and went come back, but he did. He had twenty good, a little bit bad, but mostly nothing, inside and turned on the TV and sat down dollars and a blender with its cord a trip to purgatory, where the benches are on the couch and watched five minutes of dragging behind him. He held it up. ‗You all hard and uncomfortable, and can have this for twenty. Take it nothing comes on time and the and we‘re square, drive away, no staff, all angels, but grubby ones, What if, when you die, none of more to pay.‘ He‘d taken are all sullen and uncooperative, those are an option at all but something, and was clearly or boring to the extent that when better—his pupils were pin they speak it‘s like time‘s going ev e r yb od y, g ood b a d or feeling pricks. ‗Outstanding machine,‘ he backwards and you‘d had your indifferent, all religions right said, ‗twenty bucks, no more to sentence extended? pay.‘ The jug hadn‘t been cleaned across the board, including the in some time—it still had What if, when you die, none of green in the bottom those are an option at all but ones that have you coming back as something and Rainbow shook it and it came everybody, good bad or a dolphin or a paramecium, what off the base and smashed on the indifferent, all religions right He was bending to pick across the board, including the if every person gets their own pavement. up the pieces so I pulled the ones that have you coming back twenty dollar note from his hand, as a dolphin or a paramecium, black, infinite void to float in? gave a tug on the rope and walked what if every person gets their own black, infinite void to float home with a dog. something. Then I got up and went out in? For eternity. You can move around and walked back to the corner and he was Back home he sniffed around the place but there‘s no point of reference and and I put the heater on and poured some nothing to see, so it‘s pointless. You can still there. I took a fifty out of my wallet. milk into a bowl and put it in front of the do it if you want to though. Other than ‗I‘ll take the dog,‘ I said. ‗Have you got radiator. He sniffed it and drank some that, all you can do is play mental change?‘ then did another lap of the room and he naughts and crosses with yourself and sniffed and then drank more milk. He ‗Oh fuck, I don‘t have change man! I replay old conversations and arguments was underweight and suspicious. don‘t have change.

Do I look like I have from when you were alive. You can‘t Eventually he lay down in a corner on the change?‘ He looked at the note. ‗Make it commit suicide, you‘re already dead. You other side of the room and went to sleep an even fifty, an even fifty, man.

Let‘s can‘t go mad, you don‘t have any with his eyes open. You could see his just make it fifty and you take the dog.‘ synapses to misfire. But you do have a balls. They were large and oval and they million billion trillion years or more (and ‗You said thirty,‘ I said. ‗He looks like a glistened. when you get to the end of those there‘s thirty dollar dog.‘ another set there waiting there for you) of I typed an email and sent it to Minnie ‗I‘m not a fucking shop, man, I don‘t self contemplation mixed with bursts of Fielding, a friend who had no dog. I was tic tac toe where you always win, and old have change! Fifty and he‘s yours, drive looking at the dog asleep across the room away, no more to pay. He‘s a good dog, recordings of the argument with the and I typed: outstanding dog.‘ He was looking at the garage mechanic and discussions about To: Minnie Fielding note. ‗He‘s a fifty dollar dog, man.‘ He the material for the new curtains in the put the end of the rope into my hand. living room. A traditional hell would be Cc: ‗Come on, drive away, no more to pay. better: you‘d have some other people Subject: around and you could bitch about things Fifty bucks, fifty dollar dog.‘ together, complain about the humidity ‗Forget it,‘ I said and handed the rope I have a dog now. I bought him from and how it was that, more than the heat back.

Rainbow Davis, the junkie on King itself, the humidity made things so Street. You‘d remember Rainbow if ‗Oh fuck me!‘ Rainbow was trying to uncomfortable. ‗If only it were the dry you saw him, he looks like a hamster think on his feet, difficult when you‘re heat, like we used to get in Vogel‘s Hole, that messed up.

He was looking at the would if it had a drug problem. If you when I lived there. Boy, some of those ground, trying to concentrate, shifting his ever find yourself buying something summers, I tell you.‘ weight from one leg to another, saying, from him be aware he has an unusual ~~~ ‗Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!‘ He was pricing structure. The dog cost me using it as a mantra to get a focus on the thirty dollars. I forgot to ask his I got a dog from a drug addict named situation. He looked up and thrust the Rainbow Davis. It was an unusual dog name. Being Rainbow‘s dog it would rope back into my hand. ‗Hold onto this,‘ for a drug addict: a poodle, a large one probably be something like Nembutal. with brown dreadlocked wool and paws he said and snatched the fifty. ‗I‘ll get CHAPTER ONE

46

So he‘s the thirty dollar dog for the moment. You should get one for yourself, they‘re a great thing to have around.

They drink milk and sleep with their eyes open.

Art. After sending it, I saved it in my miscellaneous folder and decided to call the dog Fletcher. ~~~ Doctor Harvey thought he was about a year old. It was my first visit to a vet.

Fletcher was put into the computer as Fletcher Handel, the protocol at veterinary clinics where the patient gains the owner‘s surname.

There was a man already in the waiting room—he had a brown paper bag and a dog. He showed me what was in the bag: two plastic jars labelled ‗Jason Watt—left testicle‘ and ‗Jason Watt—right testicle‘.

Jason‘s balls. Mr Watt spoke conspiratorially.

Doctor Harvey was bleeding slightly from the chin. He wiped it with a tissue. ‗Owner a bit upset,‘ he said. ‗The animals pick it up. Just a nip.‘

Disobedient

‗He said the castration hadn‘t taken.

Could that be right?‘ I asked him.

Farter

‗He showed me they were labelled left and right.‘

hypnotise. Could be a plus

Tyrant/Despot ‗Residual testosterone. Flush out time can Crap in a fight be more than a week—it‘s a powerful Fletcher was licking himself and I looked hormone.‘ over at him and he stopped licking and ‗So you can‘t put them back?‘ looked at me and I flipped over to a new ‗No, the tissue‘s dead. There‘s no putting page and wrote: back I‘m afraid.‘ Hypnotic eyes, could possibly

‗We put them both in one jar when we can.‘ He had Fletcher up on the examination bench, rubbing his ribcage. ‗He‘s a bit under weight,‘ he said.

Snorer Indolent Thief

‗There should be laws,‘ he said. His stethoscope was moving over Fletcher‘s chest listening for things.

Jumpy

‗I gave him thirty dollars,‘ I told him. ‗He was going to throw in a blender.‘

‗Just a checkup,‘ I told him. Fletcher sniffed Jason‘s head. Jason just looked distracted.

There was nothing wrong with Fletcher.

When he‘d finished the examination Doctor Harvey asked, ‗Anything else I can do for you today?‘ He was looking at Fletcher‘s balls. The examination cost fifty dollars, the same as a visit to Doctor Watson, my general practitioner.

I got a picture of an infected scrotum.

There was pus. It would explain the anxiety.

Then I went back to the other page of possible hurdles to our relationship:

‗He used to be owned by a drug addict. I got him for a fix.‘

‗Is he here to be knackered?‘ He looked at Fletcher.

‗This one was done on Monday, that‘s why we‘re here—faulty job.‘

Can work out how to open the fridge

Destructive habits

Stinky Eats with mouth open Slob (All dogs are naturally slobs of course. The species has no natural sense of order.)

Ratbag (Slightly different from mad.)

Sees dead people

I was starting to run out at this point but I have a friend who sees dead people and I So, when we got back I got a notepad and didn‘t want a dog who saw them as well. ‗Poor guy,‘ I said. a pen and I started to make a list of Alex Elinsky saw dead people. He was ‗Three days he‘s been done, still wants to character traits to look out for that could Russian. fuck me. It was all supposed to stop, the prove awkward. It was a new pad, open My mind started to wander after I wrote at the first page, the cover flipped back pissing, the fucking. Look at my ‗Sees dead people‘. If my theory about over the spiral binding. New dog, new trousers!‘ There were stains. the infinite void was correct then how did pad. The list began to form by itself. ‗Obviously didn‘t take. I want a refund or dead people get into Alex Elinsky‘s Bad genes bedroom at night? It would mean there‘d the cunt‘s going to put these back.‘ have to be a loophole, a trapdoor in the Bad manners ‗Can they do that?‘ I asked. I supposed void somewhere. It was an interesting they could—medical science was thought—it opened a whole new range of Wrong shape screaming ahead now they had the possibilities. If you could move in and genome sorted out.

Only one kidney out then it wouldn‘t be just mental naughts and crosses for eternity—there‘d ‗Must? Look, they marked these ―left‖ Barks be day trips, and night time pop-ins to all and ―right‖. Why‘d they do that if they Bites those people you‘d been meaning to didn‘t think they could have to go back?‘ catch up on.

Pisses and shits indiscriminately ‗You‘re probably right.‘ I laid down on the couch and woke up Leg fucker ‗A hundred and seventy-seven dollars! twenty minutes later to find the dog had That‘s a lot of money if he‘s still going to pissed in the middle of the carpet, so I got Mad look at me like that.‘ He shook one of the the pad and ticked, ‗Pisses and shits jars—the one with the left testicle. ‗But Picky eater indiscriminately‘. That was all a year they‘re beauties aren‘t they?‘ ago, a year and a bit.

Killer I had to admit they were. ~~~ Idiot ~~~ ~~~

CHAPTER TWO At night Alex Elinsky sees dead people floating up through the floor of his bedroom. They speak to him. They‘re dead people from all over the world, from all different times and they all have a story to tell. Multilingual Alex can understand many of them, and the others he just lets wash over him, absorbing the tone. He‘s made recordings, and he played one to me over the phone.

like the folded piece of paper had been in imagine that?‘ and out of the pocket quite a few times. It looked damp and it was bent to the curve We started to walk away. of a breast. ‗Hey, do you want the dog?‘ If she did it now of course I‘d just walk up and stick my hand in and pull it out.

I‘m no longer uncomfortable with the breast. Breasts are not a big deal any more, no matter what their size. But back then ...

I turned my head, still walking. ‗How much?‘ I asked him. ‗Thirty bucks, man‘s best friend, drive away, no more to pay. I have change!‘ He was shouting behind us, but we were halfway down the street.

~~~

~~~

‗Listen,‘ he said, ‗listen to this.‘

I checked on the internet: there have been As I listened, he put the phone down and one hundred and six billion people die in turned something on, then the receiver the six million or so years we‘ve been on was filled with static for about twenty the planet. If my theory is right, that‘s a hundred and six billion infinite voids. seconds.

That‘s got to take up an awful lot of ‗Did you hear that, did you hear it?‘ space—infinity would have to be feeling the pinch. So not only did I have the ‗It sounded like static, Alex.‘ worry of an eternity in an infinite void, I ‗You‘re not listening properly.‘ I heard had the worry of there not being one left the tape recorder go into high pitched fast when I called in at the counter. It was forward then he put the phone back in impossible to finish the cup of tea. I front of it and the line filled with the emptied it into the sink. same static. ~~~ ‗It still just sounds like static,‘ I told him.

Fletcher was on a lead. We were walking ‗It‘s Russian,‘ he said. ‗Can‘t you hear to Bob‘s Friary, beside the fire station it?‘ that, disappointingly, didn‘t have a ‗I guess I can hear Russian static,‘ I told fireman‘s pole. We passed Rainbow Davis, standing on a corner. He had him. another dog. I hadn‘t seen Rainbow for a ‗Bah,‘ he said, then something else in while. He didn‘t look good. He‘d lost Russian, then, ‗You can‘t hear it because weight, and was looking chalky but red endless capitalism has dulled your sense around the eyes. Fletcher sniffed his dog of the lateral and unorthodox.‘ and it growled so he left it alone.

He could have been right. He told me I‘d Rainbow stopped me. been listening to Sergey Petrov telling ‗Hey, you want a dog? I‘m selling this how he was killed and eaten by wolves dog. Man‘s best friend, man.‘ Then during a particularly bad Siberian winter. through whatever haze he was seeing the He said the detail was astounding. world that day he somehow recognised

I bought two hamburgers from Bob, at his Friary. I asked Bob not to cook one of the patties. He reminded me it was his balls if the health inspector called in.

I said, ‗I‘ll keep a watch. You can‘t just sew those things back on. I‘ve spoken to a Doctor‘.

I‘d been to Bob‘s before, and this time I told him something that occurred to me on the previous visit. ‗You‘re Bob, right?‘ ‗That‘s me,‘ he said. ‗The pun doesn‘t work, Bob‘s Friary.‘ ‗I know,‘ he said. ‗It‘d work if this used to be a Friary.‘ ‗I know.‘ ‗Or looked a bit like a Friary. You could just put a cross on the wall. That‘d help.‘ ‗I‘m not religious,‘ Bob told me and I left it there because he was preparing food and I didn‘t want to get his back up. ~~~

We sat on the seat at the bus stop and Fletcher ate the raw meat out of his bun ‗Listen,‘ I said, ‗next time you‘re talking Fletcher. ‗Hey, it‘s Scooby! That‘s and no heath inspector turned up to take Scooby, man.‘ He was a little unsteady to one of these people could you ask if Bob‘s balls. Halfway through I had to on his feet. they go back to an infinite black void reposition the top half of the bun and I when they disappear up through the noticed that a small, oval shaped area of ‗He‘s Fletcher now.‘ ceiling?‘ the meat patty was slightly discoloured, a ‗He‘s in witness protection?‘ He was little greyer than the rest of the meat. I ‗I‘ll think about it,‘ he said, but I don‘t serious, I think. ‗Hey Scooby,‘ he said finished it but found my mind wandering think he has. again, then he looked at me and possibly back to the discoloured area of meat and recognised me as well, but that may have it occurred to me that it might have been ~~~ been projection. He said, ‗Hey, I‘m part of some cancerous growth inside the Once, Lyn Hoskins grabbed a letter I was getting straight man, I‘m going to do a animal and I may have eaten a piece of holding and put it in the breast pocket of course. Going to sign up next week. cancer and you know when a thought like her white school shirt and dared me to get Going to get straight. They‘re going to that gets inside your head it churns faster it out. I didn‘t; I was a coward and I call me Arrow I‘ll be so straight‘. and faster ‘til it becomes unstable and baulked. But I had to have it back: it was turbulence is introduced and pretty well an important piece of correspondence and ‗Good for you,‘ I said. And I meant it. every single synapse is charged more than one person was involved. I‘d ‗Colonic irrigation. I‘m going to irrigate and firing with the single thought seen her do the same thing at school, a colons. Big money in colons. I‘m going that you‘ve just eaten a piece of week before, with James Taylor. They to irrigate those fuckers. Signing up next cancer. So instead of going went behind Miss Danielle‘s art week. I‘ll be irrigating in a month, two straight home we headed off the demountable, with him snatching at her tops. My plan, right, stores right across breast pocket and when the bell rang and the country, my face on the front, can you other way and I turned into Phillip Street and then down Wood Lane they emerged some time later it looked

47

48

and then I called into Doctor Watson‘s surgery.

hamburger and I think there was some cancer in the meat. I‘m pretty sure it was cancer.‘

He had a different receptionist and I told her Fletcher was a therapy ‗You can‘t get cancer from eating cancer, dog and he was allowed to lie it doesn‘t work like that.‘ down under my chair where he ‗Are you sure? How do you know?‘ went to sleep. ‗Well, it‘s hard to explain … Cancer cells There were two people ahead of me, a occur when a healthy cell divides, it‘s ...‘ woman and a man. It was impossible to tell what they were there for, just by looking at them. It could have been anything and they could have been contagious but life is a lottery and I read a Reader‘s Digest and then an old copy of the Lancet that had pictures of the insides of a cancerous human lung and an annoying article on the new trend of treating depression with counselling, which is clearly crap.

They went through in their turn.

Everything was very serious, nobody smiled and nobody spoke except Doctor Watson and all he said was, ‗Mrs Winton,‘ and then when Mrs Winton came out, ‗Mr Harris‘. Then he said, ‗Mr Handel‘. I left Fletcher asleep under my chair and followed Doctor Watson and my file into his surgery. I noticed he had the smallest of frowns as I sat in the single, steel framed chair in front of his desk. This is how it went.

‗Yes, but are you sure that eating cancer won‘t give you cancer?‘ Doctor Watson stared at the floor for a moment, then looked up with a smile of relief. ‗Was the meat cooked?‘ ‗Yes, it was cooked.‘ ‗Well there you are! You‘re quite okay.‘

He said, ‗Mr Handel‘.

‗Cancer was it?‘

‗How are you Doctor?‘

‗Yes Mr Handel, cancer.‘

‗Fine, what can I do for you today?‘

‗From eating cancer?‘ I knew I was pushing my luck with that, but I was determined to plug on ‘til the very end with this.

‗Doctor, if you eat a piece of cancer, will you get cancer?‘

‗No, not from eating cancer.‘ He was up and over to the door, opening it to usher me out. I remained seated. ‗Are you sure?‘

He looked at me for a second, I suppose to see if I was joking or not, then said, ‗Why do you ask?‘

‗Yes, I‘m sure‘. He scribbled something in my file then closed it and went to the door and opened it.

‗I think I‘ve eaten a piece of cancer.‘

‗Can you point me to any research done in this area, eating cancer?‘

‗Where would you get a piece of cancer Mr Handel?‘ ‗From a hamburger. I just had a

The visit cost me fifty dollars but it was worth it because it ratcheted my relationship with Doctor Watson up another cog turn, which was good. ~~~ When we got home I rang Minnie Fielding. ‗What would make a person go into colonic irrigation?‘ I asked her. ‗Why?‘

‗Are there schools? How do you get into it? Do you get to be a Bachelor of Irrigation? Do you study for years and ‗Exactly! It can‘t happen.‘ then find you‘re fighting back street guys ‗But what if it wasn‘t cooked properly, if with a bucket and a bit of garden hose?‘ the cancer wasn‘t cooked all the way ‗I don‘t know, Art.‘ through, though?‘

I said, ‗Doctor Watson‘.

‗Yes?‘ There was an edge of caution to his voice.

‗Thank you Doctor,‘ I said and I shook his hand. ‗If I find anything interesting I‘ll pass it on.‘ I was out the door now and Doctor Watson was getting the next patient‘s file from his receptionist.

‗You mean if you eat cooked cancer you won‘t get cancer?‘

Doctor Watson threw his biro onto his desk and it bounced against his computer keyboard and spun onto the floor. ‗Mr Handel, I had to tell a woman this morning she only has three months to live. I have patients with genuine problems.‘

‗I just want to ask you something. It‘s a medical question.‘

I got up and he looked relieved again.

‗I‘m sure there‘ll be something on the internet if you want to have a look.‘

‗Who would want to do that, irrigate someone else‘s colon?‘ ‗I don‘t know. When was Rasputin alive?‘ ‗Late nineteenth, early twentieth century.

Because that‘s all it‘d be, wouldn‘t it, basically—a hose and a bucket.‘ ‗He was one mad bastard.‘ She was typing, I could hear the clack of a keyboard. ‗Minnie.‘ ‗Yes?‘ ‗Nothing.‘ I hung up. ~~~ Someone was watching Minnie. She didn‘t know it yet but he was there in the shadowy edges and if she could have smelled him she would have smelled a black tangle of desire and fear and revulsion and lust and a hollow loneliness. He was watching for now and for now that was enough. m

Paris Portingale Mt Victoria

Continue reading Art and the Drug Addict’s Dog in Narrator Magazine Victoria/Tasmania, due out on 1 March 2011.

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Correspondence Questions?

Problems?

Opinions?

We would love to hear your thoughts on Narrator—what you like, what you don't like, and how we can improve the magazine.

So please, drop us a line on the Contact page of Narrator at www.narratormagazine.com.au/contact.html

Judging and Voting

People’s Choice

Each quarter, merit prizes are awarded to the three pieces judged most worthy by our Guest Judge for that issue.

First prize: $1,000 Second prize: $500 Third prize $250 Winners are announced in the following issue.

If you would like to sponsor a merit prize, please contact Jenny Mosher at narrator@moshpitpublishing.com.au

Don’t forget to vote for your favourite piece at:

www.narratormagazine.com/vote.php Voting opens on 1 December 2011 and closes 31 January 2012.

People’s Choice Prize is $200 If you would like to sponsor a People’s Choice prize, please contact Jenny Mosher at narrator@moshpitpublishing.com.au

Advertising/page sponsorship Narrator Magazine advertising is limited to one advertisement per page.

Advertisers must service consumers in the region of the issue in which they choose to advertise.

Generally speaking, only one industry type per region is permitted to advertise, but this will depend on the particular business‘ reach.

For example, only one financial institution would be allowed to advertise in the NSW/ACT issue of Narrator, but we would allow three different dog groomers if they serviced three distinctly

different regions, such as The Riverina, Greater Western Sydney and Coffs Harbour.

Our rates sheet is available for download from the Narrator website at www.narratormagazine.com.au/ advertise.html Advertising is most suited to the business -to-consumer operator, rather than the business-to-business operator. Our clients read, write and use computers, so stationers, computer suppliers, repairers, office and domestic furniture retailers, writing teachers, editors, writing courses

and other educational institutions would find their target market here. Other business which might be well rewarded could include beauty therapists and hairdressers, tourism and accommodation operators, online shops retailing domestic consumer products, motor vehicle and residential housing industry businesses such as repairers, sales, building contractors etc.

If you are interested in advertising, please contact Jenny Mosher on 1300 644 380 to enquire about special offers being run on our standard rates sheet.

Image credits Cover: ‗Tram Graveyard, Sydney‘ by Steve McLaren Pg 3: Jenny Mosher by Todd Sharp Pg 22: ‗Nature‘s Tears‘ by Linda Callaghan

Pg 36—41: Images supplied by Barry Walsh Pg 43: ‗Mt Wilson in Winter‘ by Jenny Mosher All other images purchased from iStockPhoto.com

About ...

What

Contributors must reside in the region.

Narrator Magazine is a free online, quarterly, regional magazine from MoshPit Publishing. It has been designed as a vehicle to provide an outlet for writers and their short stories, poems and essays of less than 5,000 words and cartoons.

When

Advertisers must deliver goods or services to that region, but may be located outside of it.

The magazine is produced quarterly and as well as being online, a limited number of copies are printed for sale.

It is generally available from the first week of each season.

During the eight weeks following publication, readers are encouraged to go online and vote for their favourite item as part of the ‘People’s Choice’ award. Only one vote per valid email address is allowed.

Prizes Each quarter a secret guest judge is asked to review the contributions and nominate those three they think most worthy. These three are then awarded cash prizes of $1,000, $500 or $250, for first, second and third most worthy works and their ‘wins’ publicised in the next issue of Narrator.

Contributors must be aged 18 or over.

The act of uploading a submission via the Narrator website or in any other manner implies that the contributor is the owner of the work, that the submission is their original work, that it has never been published before, that they are a resident of the region and that they are 18 years of age or over.

For validation purposes, all writing and artistic contributors must provide full contact details including home address.

These details will be suppressed from publication.

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 will open on 1 December 2011 at

www.narratormagazine.com.au/ vote.php Voting will close on 31 January 2012.

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 Autumn issue due out 1 March 2012 and on the website at

www.narratormagazine.com.au