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issue #07 ILLUSORY
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illusory Editorial
Joshua Teng
In 1944, Carl Jung published his psychological analysis of the long since discarded practice of alchemy. It was clear that no one had been (nor would likely be) successful at transforming metals into gold; but it was the conviction of the alchemists in their contradictory, unmethodical and ritualistic theories that interested Jung. He concluded that each alchemist’s subconscious, rather than their chemistry abilities, could create an illusion of gold onto a lump of metal. So far this all sounds rational, but Jung’s own subconscious took this theory even further. He noticed a system of recurring symbols and images through alchemical history and concluded that all humans are linked in a hereditary collective unconscious, and that within this unconscious was an innate image of God. If this were true then the imagery of dreams, hallucinations and other escapades of the subconscious can therefore be defined through these symbols. Sadly for Jung, scientific belief in the collective unconscious has gone the way of alchemy. Both are now mere examples of fact becoming superfluous history, just as we will look back on many modern scientific and cultural theories in another sixty-nine years time as belonging to history.
Today we must acknowledge that every alchemist is an individual, transforming the little fictions of their lives into illusory facts. And it is not through the unconscious but a very conscious collection of symbols and images that makes the order of words on our lips, or little black marks on these pages, meaningful. Like alchemy or the collective unconscious, nothing within this magazine can irrefutably be proven true, but in your mind it can be as real as gold. Determining what is and isn’t illusory is a deeply individual experience; and this issue of in Brief has inspired a number of personal works, spanning the uplifting conflicts of mixed martial arts, the deep pain of a relationship’s disintegration and the familial unrest of dementia. In the wider context of societal illusions, you will read of the darker side of the conservation movement and the deliberate obfuscation of Australia’s refugee policy. Our illusions cross the globe, fall in and out of the post-modern and shout their confusions from windows until they find something that at least resembles truth. Our editors have thoroughly enjoyed producing this issue for your scrutiny. The beauty of each interpretation lies in the personally unique reaction each contributor has had to the theme. Enjoy it, consume it, refute it, and come back for more.
contents
In Brief Committee Heads of Committee Jack Kenchington-Evans Britt Myers
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The Great Disappearing Boat Act
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Footscray
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groundhog Toast
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Press play
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Laura D Editor in Chief Caitlin McGrane
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Editors Teresa Gray Scott Woodard
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Arts Editor & Layout Amanda Summons Marketing Piera Dennerstein Elizabeth Yared Berlin Liew Online Chris Clarke General Members Scott Arthurson Alex Biernacki Tess Copeland Brendan Corney Laura D Kit Malone Kai Tanter Jessica Testro
MMA, a meditation Kelvin Smith
Uyo’s Life in a Small Grey Box Julian Murphy
Centrefold 12
What is the environment and how do I save it? Scott Woodard
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Ling Mcgregor
The Boat
Kiah Meadows
Rebecca Florence
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Happiness
Shauny-Maree Talbot
William Stanforth
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You Can’t Drown in the Sea Daniella Raniti
Raphaelle Race
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A One-Man Race
Pot
Josephine Mandarano
Soon-Tzu Speechley
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Make Believe Sarah Williams
About in Brief
issue #08 Risk /ɹɪsk/ noun
Cover Jesse Thompson
Formed in 2012, in Brief is a free quarterly magazine that publishes thought-provoking writing and artwork. Each issue is themed, encouraging contributors to direct their ideas towards a particular, yet broad area of enquiry. in Brief supports stylistic diversity and the creative presentation of ideas. Our emphasis on brevity challenges contributors to express their ideas with clarity and consideration.
Centrefold Ling McGregor
in Brief is funded and organised by a committee who help to edit, design and publish each issue. in Brief became an incorporated association in August 2013.
Illustrations Liam Dewey Dan Go Virginia Hau Tegan Iversen Joshua Teng
To get involved, join our mailing list, subscribe or donate email inbriefmag@gmail.com
• a situation involving exposure to danger. • the possibility that something unpleasant or unwelcome will happen. • a person or thing regarded as likely to turn out well or badly, as specified, in a particular context or respect. “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for” ― William G.T. Shedd “Fortune sides with him who dares” ― Virgil “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing” ― Warren Buffett
IN BRIEF INC.
For the next issue of in Brief, we invite contributors to turn their minds to the unknown and the dangerous. It is a common refrain that the globalised world is getting more and more complicated, but how do we navigate the muddy waters of chance? Is it possible to distinguish between the brave and the foolhardy, or do we only judge in retrospect? Crises and revolutions are the products of unpredictability, and they can arise in a modern world that has many strategies to mitigate danger and bad luck. Do they work? Is there anything to be gained from a life lived without fear? Should we accept that we live in an indecipherable universe, and just try to do our best?
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The Great Disappearing Boat Act Laura D
If an old, leaky boat crosses into Australian waters and there is no one there to report it, does it still exist? Do the people on this old, leaky boat still exist? Do their lives count? These are the questions I have been asking myself recently after hearing that the Abbott-lead Coalition Government plan to stop reporting all asylum seeker boats arriving from Indonesia. It was only a few months ago that Australia had an election, and we were all familiar with that infamous three word slogan: STOP THE BOATS!™ Yet now, after a resounding Coalition victory, we have heard nothing, and that is the way our new government wants it. Since the election on September 7th of this year (and at the time of writing), there have been around ten new boat arrivals with a reported 215 asylum seekers in total, but nary a word has been heard from, surprisingly, otherside of politics. I say surprisingly because the Coalition had no qualms about shouting boat arrivals from the rooftops when they were in opposition. In July of this year at a press conference in Brisbane, then opposition leader Tony Abbott said “the crisis on our borders has become a national emergency.” He then proceeded to list the 50,000 ‘illegal’ boat arrivals and 800 ‘illegal’ boats they came on (take this part with a grain of salt because the Labor government thought these figures were highly exaggerated). After winning government however, the Coalition no longer plans to give us such detailed facts and figures. In a statement at a press conference announcing the government’s plan to keep boat arrivals secret, our immigration minister Scott Morrison stated that the government is not in the business of providing “shipping news” for people smugglers. Apparently publicising the arrival of boats and asylum seekers only fuels the problem because each successful arrival only encourages more people to risk their lives on the high seas to make it to Australia. Oh the sweet, sweet irony!
But the question I am struggling with is why the silence? Is it to create the illusion of stability, the illusion of good government and excellent policy problem solving? If this is the case, are we being lied to; a lie of omission perhaps? And do we deserve any better considering that the majority of Australians voted this government in? It seems to me that the issue of asylum seekers is one that could so easily be swept under the carpet and forgotten when a biased media (Murdoch!) and a secretive government collude to suppress information relating to the cause. Considering we do not have a border control ‘emergency’, and we are in no danger of being ‘swamped’ by overseas arrivals, it only seems natural that the mantra ‘out of sight, out of mind’ would apply here, and would be only too convenient for a government which knows the issue of asylum seekers is much more complex than a slogan and ordering boats to turn around. This then comes back to my original questions. If these arrivals are not reported, do they really exist? Certainly the issue would cease to exist in the mind of the national consciousness, thus making it less important over time. It also means that the men, women and children who risk their lives to start afresh in Australia are afforded even less respect and care than they are now. By keeping their plight secret we are denying them a face, a name, a voice. This is a high moral price to pay when we allow our governments to control and sometimes fabricate their own narratives. It is a slippery slope when governments are allowed to suppress information. How far becomes too far? It started with asylum seekers, and has now moved on to the Coalition policy of having all media appearances and releases approved by the Prime Minister’s office. I have always associated this kind of behaviour with repressive governments such as those in North
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Dan Go
Korea and China. We get these unreal images of adoring citizens in too-perfect formation clapping and cheering their benevolent leader, whilst hearing horrific tales of starvation and state-sanctioned murder. It becomes hard to tell fact from fiction, and this confusion is what perpetuates ignorance and misinformation. Now, do not get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting this is the path we are taking here in our own country, but we do need a strong and independent press to make sure that government is held to account. Prominent journalists and commentators such as Andrew Bolt do not help anyone by being so strongly biased towards one political party and deliberately peddling lies such as climate change being a socialist conspiracy or asylum seekers and immigrants coming here solely to destroy our ‘Aussie way of life’. We also need an electorate who demand better, more transparent conduct from their representatives. The very idea that something as childishly simple as Turn Back The Boats!™ could be an election-winning policy platform, and one which includes no details, is simply staggering. The utter ridiculousness of turning such a complex situation into a three word slogan, and the
fact that this three word slogan is one of the most memorable policies from the election, speaks volumes about not only the quality of our politicians, but the expectations of the people they are meant to represent. We are better than this. We live in a new media and digital age where information that is hidden and censored often does not stay so for long, and this should mean our political space is more open and transparent, but only if we do not become complacent. We cannot just assume that because we live in a world where information is harder to conceal due to the rise of social media this is always the case. We run the real risk of becoming lazy and taking for granted the fact that we have up-to-date news at our fingertips. We must always ask questions of those who presume to have authority like governments and media organisations. We cannot allow ourselves to become the victims of the deceptions and unrealities created by those in positions of power, because we will be a poorer society for it. Even something as simple as open and honest reporting of asylum seeker boat arrivals becomes important, because without the facts, reality becomes really easy to fabricate.
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Footscray Raphaelle Race
Winnie reaches back behind the couch fumbling for the half-empty pretty blue bottle of gin and memories of Halloween nights dressed up in the bloodied white dress of a nurse and her boyfriend her ex boyfriend Ben in his rockabilly in his pirate clothes lightsabre tucked into his belt dope curls out of his mouth and he passes the joint on to me to pass on to to pass on to pass through Carl who sinks into his shadows the shadows of the blanketed couch at Winnie’s place in Footscray where me and Carl used to live and they would visit us as I come see Winnie now to hang out smoke and watch Xena: Warrior Princess but Winnie isn’t there is reaching back always back back to those schooldays of gin of bourbon coke of gallon bottles of sherry and Ben and clutching her poor stomach drowning in her stomach and the smokescreen with her hands weighted down with her hands busily rolling more as Ben takes and passes and unravels and I take and pass and flicker in and out now with short pink hair then faded long and Carl never leaves his room in Footscray is eaten by the couch and Winnie with her hands unfolding in time with her hands leaning over her top hangs so that everyone can see with her hands stretching far reaching down reaching back into her deep sea but her foot and ankle are caught fast by some shadowy deep-sea monster
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Groundhog Toast William Stanforth The toast burns and each day is the same. James and I stand in the kitchen and consider what to do. He’s been sleeping on my floor for the past four weeks and I haven’t asked him when he plans on leaving. He was kicked out of his last place for running the washing machine at 4:00AM and taking in stray dogs. Needless to say, the share house lifestyle wasn’t working out for him. “Should we get more bread?” I ask. “I don’t know,” he says. “Do you have any money?” “Nah,” I say, and that’s the end of the conversation. I like him because he doesn’t talk very much – that, and he seems to live in a different dimension to most people. And I don’t mind him staying over, because it means I don’t have to wake up alone. But each day, I still wake up horrified to be alive. It’s okay, I’m just being dramatic. I don’t want you to think that I’m unstable or depressed or something. And I’m not talking about that sinister, old-fashioned horror either. I’m talking about a more friendly horror; the kind where you wake up and have two arms and two legs and realise that everything that surrounds you will never be explained. That’s all. I sit at the table and James puts four Beroccas into a large glass vase and begins filling it with water from the sink. Last night we went to a Mexican-themed bar and I spent a whole week’s pay on tequila shots. James disappeared with some girl and left me alone with an old-timer who attempted to convince me that mobile phones give you brain tumours. I woke up this morning with a splitting headache and spent three hours convincing myself that the tequila had nothing to do with it. I live above a Chinese restaurant and my kitchen window faces an apartment block about a car’s width away. It’s the kind of place you’d see in a movie, but nothing interesting happens here. Have you ever seen that film Network? It’s the one where Peter Finch plays a disturbed news anchor who encourages his viewers to lean out their windows and scream, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Sometimes I feel like screaming that out of my window, but the neighbours would probably call the police. They always get angry over that sort of shit. James sits on the other side of the table and drinks from the vase. I can’t tell if he’s doing it for my amusement or if he really needs that much water. His facial expression rarely
changes; he could have been a successful serial killer if he was raised in a less loving and supportive home. He holds up the two pieces of burnt toast, the only remaining food in my apartment, and says, “How about we scrape the charcoal off and start again, like an ice-sculpture or something?” Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day becomes an ice-sculptor, but probably because he was stuck in a time-loop plot device. I think you’d have to be out of your mind to actually become an ice-sculptor. What’s the point? All that work and then it just melts away, but I guess everything does in the end. He also attempts to commit suicide with a toaster in a bathtub, but don’t worry if you haven’t seen it – it all works out. Bill Murray uses the time-loop to become an upstanding citizen and win the heart of the pretty-funny-smart girl. He also becomes a total badass at playing piano. I tell James that I think it’s a stupid idea because the toast is so badly burnt that there’ll be nothing left after we scrape away at it. I’d eat it but my little sister told me once that eating burnt toast gives you cancer – carcinogens, she said. We were only kids and I’m not sure why it stayed with me, but that sort of thing tends to. Like one time this guy told me that he got bad food from the restaurant beneath me. It didn’t make him sick, but it was just kind of average. This was before I moved in upstairs and I’ve still never eaten there because of it. But what would he know anyway? Maybe he just doesn’t like Chinese food generally. James and I spend the afternoon watching a TV show about a pet psychologist who teaches bored middle-class people to help their pets overcome irritating fears. In today’s episode, the psychologist alleviated a Golden Retriever’s fear of thunder and lightning. The exposure therapy with sound recordings worked, but I still felt sorry for the dog. I couldn’t really see what the big deal was anyway; why isn’t he allowed to be scared sometimes? How often does it thunder, six–seven times a year? I think it’s insane to spend your life worrying about mobile phones and carcinogens, and the reason why we’re here. And knowing it’s insane doesn’t stop you from worrying, so what can you do? Maybe that’s why people bathe with toasters and scream shit out of windows, you know, because it’s hard to ignore the smallest and most annoying facts of our existence – things like acceptable times to operate washing machines and keeping dogs quiet when lightning flares in the sky – and avoiding eating food that could but probably won’t end up killing you.
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PressPlay Rebecca Florence
I wake up and press play. It’s 8am and I’m tangled in sheets and headphones… I fell into music writing. It had started with weekends spent being the last one on the dance floor in dusty bars and clandestine basements. But writing about music is so often a web of press releases and deadlines and working to please publicists when it becomes a profession. In the midst of articles and music I was being paid to listen to, I put up a website asking for people to send me songs that drew them out of their ‘everyday’. I wanted to experience over an entire day the songs that people close their eyes on their headphone commute to, the lyrics strangers sang in the shower, made eyes-open-love listening to. I wondered, after looking across the list of over two hundred songs that had been sent to me by people from around the world – what is it about a melody or a drumbeat that can communicate more than words can? What is that feeling that sits just below your throat that responds to a rhythm and catches you off guard, that pulse that thuds in your chest that makes you glad to be alive? What is it that plants that hand clapping beat in someone’s head in the first place? Maybe, instead of album sales and critic reviews, that’s what I had been trying to understand all along. One person in particular sent me more tracks than anyone else. Music was, after all, the reason we met. I’d purposefully removed the titles from this playlist, but from the opening strains I knew immediately who had sent it. We’d joked about it the first time we met in person at a warehouse party and in a rush of solidarity we’d swapped the cheesiest songs we loved, laughing. He was a producer, a DJ, who I’d once interviewed. After his article ran, he emailed me saying not many people had described his music like I had, pulled out the intended meaning in his instrumental and delicately composed tracks. Our short-lived conversation stayed with me for some reason, that indefinable connection you have with an almost-stranger. In the months that followed we
became friends, sharing the tracks we grew up with, cried on buses listening to songs, which had soothed our broken spirits after heartbreak. We traded tracks like scars, like the remedy to a bruise we both understood. All those stupid songs had gotten under my skin and for a moment I was angry with him for sending me something that forced me to think of him. He was miles away now, in Canada, on his own journey, meeting and seeing musicians and probably women and most definitely not thinking of me. The songs had blurred into an insistent voice inside of my head throughout the morning. The headphones burned in my ears as I switched between turning them up, turning them too barely audible. I wanted a moment to think, to breathe, to feel my day without a wash of melancholy when a slow beat tugged at my ears, I wanted to listen to my lecturer without a metal song – my most hated genre – blasting through my head. I wanted to listen to my friend as we sat having coffee without the thud of a bass-line ringing in my ears. But then there were moments of bliss. I watched autumn leaves swirl in the wind in what seemed like perfect time to one of my favourite songs as I looked out of a dirty tram window. It was by a band I used to listen to when I lived in another city, that time of my life seemed captured in it’s slow melody. Who knew I loved this song? I thought of a drunken conversation I’d had with the DJ as the lyrics ran through my head – he did, after all, know the songs I slipped into like a warm bath. We’d sat in a dark bar, admitting those things that are so easy to say to bold eyes with the taste of wine sitting on your tongue. I had admitted, one late night after drinking several glasses of red, that I played it on repeat for days after my first break up. Some almost-forgotten boy, whose face was blank when I’d played it to him in his car. The day after the bar the DJ had messaged me another song I couldn’t quite remember, with a simple phrase ‘use wisely’. I wanted to find his text, find that song that I’d never gotten around to hearing. But I couldn’t. My project would be ruined. He’d said it was
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Tegan Iverson
what he played over and over again when his girlfriend of six years had broken up with him. In my mind, this song I’d never heard was dramatic and dark with violins and a husky falsetto. But as quickly as the nostalgia swept in, it faded and as the next song began playing. I got off the tram into the rest of my day. At some point, that song played. It’s a track that many people reference or recommend. It’s by a musician whose whole biography I could recite to you, I could tell you every record he’s put out and make a close guess at the year, I could even tell you about the curve of his lips. But that’s all less important than how his music makes me feel. I’d made my mum a mix CD when I’d returned home a few years ago. For a fellow music lover, her car is painfully understocked – at what point in aging do you fall out of the spell of music and start listening to talkback radio? – but anyway, it was a mixture of soul and Motown we both loved, at the very end there was this song, with just a few repeated lyrics, unlike any I had ever heard before. I’d been playing it only occasionally so its magic didn’t fade but my mum was driving and my tenyear-old sister and her friend were in the car when it came on. The melodic, broken beat and faded out vocals were still affecting me in that odd, breathless way. My mother didn’t get it; against those classics it had sounded too modern to her, too strange. But later we got back into the car and it began playing again. There was this small whimpering sound and I turned around in the passenger seat to see my sister’s friend eyes wide. She looked at me and it was one of those jolting moments that you know will stick with you. “I’m glad you put this song on again,” was all she said. I sat next to a boy on the tram on the way home from University. It was crowded and he looked somewhat familiar. He swung his cello case a little too close to me and apologised quickly. I wanted to talk to him, ask him why he played an instrument that was wider than he was; maybe I was lonely or all the music I’d listened to and thought about was making
me crazy. He told me about his jazz band and I told him about my project and the song I was listening to. It was another track I’m sure I’d spoken to the DJ about, which for some reason made me stingingly sad, and I was suddenly forcing this cello player I didn’t know to listen to the track with me because he’d said he’d never heard it. With one white ear bud connected to this stranger I turned the volume up and looked out of the window. I knew I was going someplace he wasn’t headed. At home, I switched my music to the speakers as I got into bed. Sinking into my tangled sheets I’d flicked open a dogeared book but couldn’t concentrate. I checked my e-mail and saw the DJ was online. I asked him what time it was in Canada and fell quickly asleep. Perhaps I should have dreamt of all the musicians I’d listened to sitting on the end of my bed, strumming violins and cellos and selecting worn records. But I dreamt of the DJ and how much our trading of music meant to me. In our double-clickinstant-download world he, and waking up to the songs he sent to me, was a reminder that there are real feelings behind the music. Perhaps each of us look for little pieces of ourselves, and the familiarity of other’s emotions, like the characters from stories you love who you always imagine are like you, or the things you collected from childhood and always intended to throw away. It’s so easy to forget that others feel as we do, that same sense of sadness over particular notes, or that indescribable moment of happiness that makes you smile like an idiot on public transport. Maybe we listen to and make and share music only to connect; to remind ourselves that a beat makes other people clap along too, and that a love song stirs others’ memories. We pass along music that moves us in the hope it stirs someone else the same way it did us. When I woke up to the end of the playlist and that complete silence, the DJ had messaged me another track. I put my headphones back in, and pressed play.
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MMA, a meditation Kelvin Smith
When your neck is constricted an instinctual panic starts to rise. I had forgotten to keep my neck protected, an error. My partner had taken hold of my collar and was attempting a ‘cross choke’ (imagine grabbing someone’s collars with opposite hands and dragging the collars down and across). Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) trains you in many things (strength, endurance, strategy) but one of the more important skills it teaches you, is to be able to breathe, calm down and think in a stressful and/or violent situation. Sport is often accused of promoting or glorifying violence, particularly sports like boxing and more recently Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). Is it possible however, that violent sports are able to contribute positively? The debate is polarised, loud voices on either side shouting down people with more considered things to say. Like most arguments, however, an absolute view on one side is almost never the correct one. I managed to slip a hand inside the choke, giving me some room. I could feel that in his enthusiasm my partner has put himself off balance trying to get the submission. Being on my back with my legs wrapped tightly around his waist I can feel his weight shift too much to one side. I breathe, suppress the instinct to flail and wait for his centre of gravity to shift. I plant my feet, bridge my hips and flip (or ‘sweep’) us over. In the scramble I manage to get a good grip on his collar. Not making his mistake, I make sure my knees are anchored into his sides so as to not lose my balance. I apply the cross choke, a few seconds or so and I get three quick taps on my shoulder. It’s over, I got the submission. This is a typical scene in a BJJ training session. BJJ is a major style of what is known as MMA and a Martial Art in its own right. I have been training for about one year, and I am still very much a beginner.
Media discussion of MMA tends to focus on the violent and brutal aspects of the sport, which to the uninitiated seems fair enough. User comments on news sites generally blow up into variations on ‘its our sport let us do what we want!’ or ‘look at the stupid barbarous nature of these people, this is what causes violence on the street!’ You will occasionally read something more considered but these are few and far between. MMA has become popular mainly through the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). If you have any knowledge or interest in MMA you know the UFC. Admittedly, the UFC does not do itself any favors in being perceived anything more than a ‘dude-bro’ promotion. Lots of hip-hop, ‘nu metal’, flashy graphics and “OH MAH GAWHD!!” announcing. There is also no denying the nature of the sport, it is brutal and often confronting to watch. Discussing the relationship between violence and sport is important. Popular sport is a reflection of the society in which it is celebrated. If we tolerate violence in sport are we also then tolerating violence in society? But this question masks a more important one: If we suppress violence absolutely are we also creating a situation where violence will present itself in society anyway, in an uncontrolled and more dangerous manner? To attempt to answer this question I need to move into personal experience to demonstrate how training in BJJ has helped me. In my experience, this training has led me to some of the most rewarding self-discovery that I have known. Since finishing university and starting work in various public welfare positions I have been attempting to stay fit by going to
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Tegan Iverson
various gyms and torturing myself by aiming towards some vague idea of health and fitness. It was also a way of dealing with the stress of working with people dealing with crisis and trauma (often with violent offenders). It soon became tiresome and I was falling into that routine of six months or so of ‘full on’ gym work, burnout, then nothing until I felt self-conscious enough to start the routine again. BJJ was suggested by a colleague. I was trepadatious, filled with thoughts of the Karate Kid’s Cobra Kai and being bullied by macho dickheads. Not only did this not occur, it could not have been further from the reality. Since starting BJJ I have always been treated with respect by my teammates. Yes, there are many buff fellows and ladies with lots of tattoos, though no more than you would find at any East Brunswick poetry recital, and without the judgy, sneery looks. In fact there were no dickheads at all. Dickheads simply do not last in this environment. Camaraderie and friendship have been one of the more surprising aspects of this training. ‘Self-discovery’ sounds like a martial arts cliché, but by training in something both physically and mentally demanding many other aspects of my life improved. The physical benefits were obvious, but this training has also helped me improve almost everywhere. I am the kind of person who will tend towards the anxiety. For most of my life I have been plagued by that ridiculous anxious feeling that I’m actually faking everything, and sooner or later everyone will find out. By training in BJJ I have learnt what I am capable of physically and mentally and then have seen that capability improve. Empirical evidence that I am not
as shit as I thought, if you will. I have found that in stressful situations I am able to slow things down, breath and act in a more deliberate and confident way. The fact still remains, MMA is really, really violent. My opinion, is that to deny the violent nature of human beings is to only invite further violence. That kind of violence can be explosive, uncontrolled and often deadly. Working with many convicted violent offenders, I have found that ignorance, fear and anger are large parts of what makes up those kinds of violent acts. Training and focusing our aggressive natures can help take away that ignorance and fear. It is a way of funneling aggression towards something positive and constructive. Why go out, get drunk and feel you need to prove yourself by bashing someone when you ‘prove yourself ’ three times a week at training? This is not to say that only those who train in MMA are not violent, or that those that train in MMA are never violent outside the gym. However, what I have often seen in people that train frequently is an understanding of themselves, a sense of humility and a respect for others. These are all factors missing in most violent offenders. Of course MMA will never be attractive to everybody. But I think it is worth getting beyond the snap judgments and closed-minded thinking of the most vocal members of both sides of this debate. I would encourage anyone to give MMA a go, be it BJJ or Muay Thai, or any other style. In my opinion it beats moving lumps of metal up and down or running for hours in one spot.
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Ling McGregor
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a one-man race Soon-Tzu Speechley
A strange thing happens each time I leave my motherland, Malaysia, and set foot overseas. Through a potent combination of history, personal circumstances, and the mysterious voodoo that is citizenship law, my race changes every time I cross a border. At home in Malaysia, I am officially ‘European’ (or ‘Orang Eropah’ as my documents put it). While abroad, as a foreigner visiting on a Malaysian passport, I am usually classified as ‘Asian.’ This transformation is not physical. I invariably land with the same mix of genes I boarded the plane with – inherited in equal parts from my Chinese Malaysian mother and my English father. But somewhere along the invisible borders between one jurisdiction and another, my race is reformulated. History plays no small part in all this. Malaysia inherited a cosmopolitan citizenry from all corners of the world, and a narrow conception of race from a cold and rainy sceptr’d isle in Europe. In Malaysian law, race is inherited patrilineally (that is, from the father). This is a hangover from our time as a British colony. It is an understanding of race from the age of phrenology – when skulls were avidly measured to create hierarchies of people. At the time, Darwin’s theories were frequently applied to people in a manner that conveniently justified the imperial enterprise. But while the world in which these laws were formulated may seem far removed from our own times, this understanding of race continues to have a very real impact, and is a source of deep fissures in post-colonial Malaysia. Race is all-pervasive here. Property, education, taxes, and even religion frequently go hand-in-hand with race. Coming into play at birth, and affecting almost every facet of life, race adds another layer of belonging (or un-belonging) to the community that is the nation. In his seminal work on nationalism, Benedict Anderson argues that a nation is an “imagined community,” as any one member of a nation will never know all other members of the same nation, “yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.” In my experience, the idea of race – despite its
seemingly concrete, biological basis – operates in much the same way. People often perceive me to be something I am not, and I am rarely identified by others as belonging to the races to which I supposedly ‘belong’. When I introduce myself, my name inevitably leads to the question “Where do you come you from?” Whether or not I look like the half-Chinese, halfEnglish Malaysian that I am becomes a matter of debate. “You look English to me,” says a Geordie friend – as solid an endorsement of my Englishness as can be. “I could tell immediately that you’re mixed,” says a fellow Malaysian. “You could pass for Algerian,” an acquaintance from that part of the world assures me at a dinner party. “Nah, you’re Aussie, mate,” concludes a friend from Melbourne. Back in Kuala Lumpur, where I was born, I get mistaken for a tourist daily, and consequently fleeced by cab drivers – no matter how much I protest that I’m an “anak Malaysia” (or ‘child of Malaysia’). To borrow Anderson’s term, what I am “imagined” to be rarely lines up with the legal or familial realities of my race. How a person labels me often tells me more about their own understanding of race than anything else. For all the impact my motherland’s construction of race has had on my life, this simplistic reading of race has always made it seem terribly flimsy to me. On the whole, race seems a rather arbitrary construct. The thinness of this idea is highlighted at family dinners, where none of my cousins are of the same race as me, though all of us are related by blood. When my uncles and aunts visit from Japan, Switzerland, and the United States, Christmas at grandma’s becomes a lot like a plenary sitting of the United Nations; there is a great deal of talking, and very little gets done. But I find it hard to imagine that line labelled ‘race’ running across the dinner table, dividing us into neat, anthropological compartments. In my family, my generation is one of mutts and mixed-breeds. This motley assortment of individuals, nationalities, and surnames is – with our shared experiences, memories, and affection – far more meaningful to me as a group than my nationality.
13
You Can’t Drown In The Sea Daniella Raniti Liam Dewey
Before the nation-state as we know it came into being, the words ‘nation’ and ‘race’ were largely interchangeable. To me, they have a similarly hollow ring. The communities I find most meaningful are the ones that are real and tangible. I know I belong with my family, and with friends. I experience a sense of community with my neighbours, and the people I run into in my suburb—known by face if not by name. I identify with my classmates and my colleagues, the people I interact with each day. These are groups to which I am happy to ascribe belonging. I find it far more meaningful to say I am a copywriter at an ad agency, an alumnus of Melbourne Uni, or a supporter of the North Melbourne Football Club, than to compartmentalise myself into a racial category that inevitably squeezes too hard here or hangs too loose there, like a pair of ill-fitting shoes. If pressed to choose a label for myself – to pin down what I am, and where I’m from – I’m likely as not to call myself a Melburnian, since that’s where I feel most at home. In a recent piece for the Guardian, Benjamin Barber argued: We are German or Japanese or English only in terms of invented monocultural identities; politically such identity amounts to little more than occasional voting or paying taxes, otherwise national politics understood as a spectator sport at best, something we watch on television. But we are Londoners or Parisians or Romans as a matter of our core being. Cities are where we are born, where we are educated and grow up, where we work, play, pray and create, where we are married, have children, get old and die. Certainly, the urban experience – my seventeen years in Kuala Lumpur and seven or so years in Melbourne – has had a bigger influence on my identity than any flag, anthem, or racial category. With so many meaningful labels to choose from, the idea of race has limited use to me, though I wear my twin-ancestry quite clearly on my sleeve – and in in my name. So when someone asks me whether I feel more Chinese, or English, or Malaysian, I tell them I’m running a one-man race.
i am an island and you are too in a sea not knowing what to do when we shut our eyes there is no you or me inhale exhale for certainty as time is void for there is nothing left action was always fate’s only theft, now here, we are born (or here we die?) here, there is choice there’s no galactic eye in the ocean of everything that’s nothing (what do we do?) - open our eyes to forget what we knew, so that when our islands flood and we flee, we’ll know that: we can’t drown in the sea
14
Happiness Shauny-Maree Talbot
The word “goya” means the “transporting suspension of disbelief that can occur in good storytelling.” Its origins lie in the Urdu language, and has no English equivalent. Storytelling and life are by nature related. We recount our memories, relive our tragedies and recite our achievements. Each event is another page in our perpetual story. When we are children we rely upon our senses to create our impression of the world. We are material creatures – all which is sensory, tangible, measurable is real to us. As a child, our reality is sensory and nothing more. I want you to think back, far back. Find your earliest memory, and drag it up into your consciousness. Mine is simple: I don’t know how old I am. There is a small, cold glass jar of baby food in my fat hands. The air smells like my mom’s clean, wet hair. “Eat!” I hear. The taste of peas. But I was happy. I was content to sit there, slowly drive my mother insane and avoid the airplane the course of which was set to “my wittle mawf ”. Happiness was something real then. It was something I could hold in my hands, taste in my mouth, smell in the air, hear on the radio, and see when the lights were on. And yet, as I grew older, happiness did not seem real. It seemed fleeting, distant. For some reason it had stopped lingering. I couldn’t taste it. I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t feel it. It only happened occasionally.
Happiness used to last for hours and hours. The days ebbed into one another in a colourful blur of sensory perceptions. It seems like happiness has grown up without me – I am still a child, stuck in a phenomenological world. Even though I have outgrown my pin-up growth chart, I have not grown away from these sensations that compel me to strive for happiness. As adults, we can now accept that happiness comes in bursts and spurts, and almost never in rivers. Happiness does not flow continuously. Like that single, blissful moment of complete absorption into a story, it never lasts. As much as we truly believe we are a part of the story’s world, we cannot live there. We do not breathe the air of the characters. We do not live their struggles. Yet we can empathize with our friends and understand the suffering of our parents. Putting oneself into the shoes of another – is this not another way to transport us into the story of someone else? We are living our own stories, and becoming characters in others. Regardless of whether or not we are focalised or periphery, we are characters living a constant story. They replace our senses as the criteria for our realities. Without human interaction, constant reassurance, and common ideologies there can be no sustainable, communal reality. There could be no happiness. Do not despair though. Find solace in the thought that, ultimately, we are innately drawn to the people, places and ideas that make us happy. As we ground ourselves ever more firmly in the present, we grow to understand that the bursts of happiness we do experience are precious things. We can immerse ourselves entirely within that page of our story.
15
The Boat Kiah Meadows
Scaphʹism. Locking up a criminal in the trunk of a tree, bored through so as just to admit the body. Five holes were made—one for the head, and the others for the hands and legs. These parts were anointed with honey to invite the wasps. In this situation the criminal would linger in the burning sun for several days. (Greek, skaphē, anything scooped out.) - Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable You are Milk, She is Honey, and I am me, lying here in the hollow log with my unwashed hair skimming the top of the river. Apparently there are other people in the water, people not like me, people who can breathe below, people who don’t know You and She, or at least people who aren’t bothered by you both. She is slight and pale. She smiled when She kissed me goodbye on my trip. You are harsh but Your breath never smells of the coffee You drink and Your hair smells like coconuts as it brushes my nose. I am taller than you both, with wider hips, better suited for bringing forth babies who would get muddy in this water. You and She did well squeezing me into this splintery bole. I like the freckles on your noses that I can only see when your faces approach mine, before I go cross eyed and I have to close them. When they open up again, blinking because the sun in this country is too too bright. She is out of my view, but You linger close enough for me to smell the coconuts. She tried to tell me what it might be like when I get to the middle of the river. She told me what she might do if it were her. I could not understand exactly what She meant. You kicked my log with Your bare foot and hurt Your big toe. I like that You did it for me. I hope it is still bleeding. I hope it never stops. My belly swelled, little by little. For a while I didn’t mind, I only wished that I had been full of something other than maggots, because it hurt when they began to eat my digestive system on the eighteenth day. When some of them turned in to flies, I wanted to die.
They buzzed around in my guts, trying to find a way out. Another kiss from you, Milk, and Honey, of course, and they started to fly out. Covered in lard and blood and stomach acid they flew from my gut and into my hollow log, on to the skin on my chest to find something to eat. They did come from me after all. And I am made of meat, rotting here alone. I felt obliged to feed them. It’s now my twentieth day inside of here. The last two have gone on for years. I am thinking about making You sad. I like to make Her sad, but She is not sad for me. She is sad because my words make Her glass eyes leak. She is pretty when She pouts. She is pretty when little pieces of Her heart break away and float into Her body, stinging, bouncing between muscles and bones, crystallised but still sweet. When I make You sad though, it is not pretty. You become grotesque when my maggots tunnel into your soul and turn You sour. I would rather You be happy, but not for anything except meeting me on the other side of my journey. I want You to be there. I hope You are. But I don’t expect it. I know You’ll be swimming beneath with the others. The sun burns my face, but I can’t feel it inside the log. I’m not warm in here. I saw You yesterday on the riverbank as I drifted past. The sun had gone down and I could look You in the eye. Your arms were crossed and Your slender fingers were perched so delicately atop them. I thought You were pretty although I could not tell Your mood. She was around the bend. I knew it when I saw Her honey hair blowing in the wind and I imagined She was sad. While I floated away, I watched the stars flicker from red to green and felt sunlight in my stomach. I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why. I imagined Your fingers reached out from the bank to bring me this inexplicable sunshine and I waited for a moment. I waited for You to be there. But You were too far away. And the sunshine left and I wept into the river, cold again.
16
What is the environment and how do I save it? Scott Woodard
I recently checked my letterbox and found a kangaroo. It stared back at me with wide eyes like a hairy malformed baby. My immediate desire was to do whatever the kangaroo wanted, if only I could make it happy. Fortunately the kangaroo was a spokesperson for the Animal Justice Party. I eagerly read its demands and upon finishing realised that I had been emotionally manipulated by an unwitting animal. The Animal Justice Party’s policies have the naïve simplicity of a small child’s fantasy world. The Party advocates that we “respect” kangaroos “for their intrinsic worth.” They seek an end to kangaroo “culls” (their scare quotes) which they term “slaughter” (my scare quotes). They replace the label of “pest” with that of “one of the most recognised Australian icons in the world.” They infer that kangaroos are as “gentle, affectionate and unique” as their stuffed toy counterparts. And, of course, kangaroos should be taught to speak, preferably in line with the Animal Justice Party. What we end up with is conservation aimed at a demographic of idiots. Kangaroos are what conservationists call “charismatic megafauna”: big cute animals whose facial expressions we can empathise with. They are basically a rigged Rorschach test. It is not surprising that all of the Animal Justice Party’s policies relate to our country’s more iconic and easily lovable mammals and birds. Their policies say nothing for the other 180 or so endangered animal species in Australia. The Party’s idea of conservation has as much reality as reality TV. The Animal Justice Party’s rhetoric is equally oblique. Words such as “pest” are confined to political jargon, whereas conservational ecologists would instead use “overabundant”.
A species can be “overabundant” while remaining an Australian icon. A species cannot be a “pest” and an Australian icon. It is indisputable that in large parts of the country, kangaroo density is much higher than the optimal 1.5/km2. When kangaroos are overabundant across huge areas it is impractical to either sterilise the animals or to move them to an Animal Justice Party member’s backyard. There is only one option left and it’s being called “slaughter”. Of course, there are upsides to overabundance for the Animal Justice Party. Skeletal and malnourished kangaroos will have bigger and therefore cuter eyes, at least when not covered by facial lumps resulting from malnutrition. Dead kangaroos beside roads or in plains are admittedly easier and safer to cuddle. The decimation of grasses makes their corpses easier to spot, as well as the corpses of other charismatic mega fauna such as the Eastern Barred Bandicoot who depend on these grasses. It would seem that nature isn’t natural when viewed through the photographer’s lens. If we take their spin literally, the Animal Justice Party is saying that kangaroos are Australia’s iconic beloved children and it is wrong to murder them for the benefit of the other children. It would seem that the Party’s perception of the natural world has become completely disconnected from nature. The science of population dynamics is no longer important when the Party is literally creating and selling their sentimentalised image of the environment to Melburnians. Standing at my letterbox, I could only interpret the Animal Justice Party’s brochure as a coded insult to my intelligence. The kangaroo with the big droopy eyes made excellent fodder for my recycling bin.
17
Virginia Hau
18
Uyo’s Life in a Small Grey Box Julian Murphy
Clutter, confusion, a quotidian chaos. A grey box, about the size of a doctor’s waiting room, but with thousands of tiny projectiles ricocheting around in it. Like rubber bouncing balls in continual motion. Or, wait – birds. Yes, birds is better. Small ones, sparrows maybe. A flock of one thousand sparrows has been let into the doctor’s waiting room through a non-existent window. They make up a swarming mass, seeming to occupy every bit of space in the room. There is no order to their movement either, or if there is, it is impossible to discern. Instead, the birds hurtle about the room randomly. At times they are denser in one corner of the room and at other times they spread evenly to occupy every bit of the limited airspace. In the middle of this pandemonium sits a man, his name is Uyo. He doesn’t move much, but when he has the energy Uyo bobs his head around, trying to follow one of the feathery missilies with his eyes. But the birds move so fast it’s impossible to focus on a particular one with the naked eye – all Uyo sees is a pulsating blur. The colouring of the sparrows is similar to the walls of the room, and at times Uyo finds it difficult to tell whether he is looking at a wall of birds or a wall of wall. This means that the walls sometimes feel like they are moving in and out, coming right up to Uyo’s nose and then receding to beyond his reach. The effect is incredibly disorientating. And the visual confusion is compounded by the horrendous noise. The birds screech and cheep and there are sickening little thuds as they collide with the walls and slide to the floor. There’s a different sound, too, for when the birds hit each other mid-air – a softer sound, though sometimes with the clack of beak hitting beak. Under all this is the continual hum of thousands of wing beats per second, a hum that sometimes feels to Uyo like it’s coming from inside his head. It is hard to imagine anyone surviving this assault on the senses for longer than a few seconds or minutes. But there is no need to imagine. Uyo is in fact sitting there in the middle of it all, in the centre of the grey box’s floor. And Uyo sits there, not just for a few seconds or minutes either, but for what seems like a lifetime.
Then the sparrows just disappear. There is silence, total emptiness, and the walls and ceiling of the box fold out, origami-style, and flatten down onto a vast horizontal plane extending into the infinite distance. Now Uyo sits in the middle of the plane. It’s absolutely empty. The sparrows have vanished and there is nothing, as far as the eye can see. In fact, it is unclear whether there is silence or just a faint recurring echo of the earlier noise. Regardless, it is always a relief to begin with, this new quietude after the aural madness of before. Initially it feels liberating for Uyo to have this space to himself. But with his new freedom comes an intense loneliness, which grows and morphs into a deep, melancholic sadness. The sadness comes when Uyo realises that he can’t share his freedom with anyone, not even the sparrows. And so Uyo begins to loathe the absolute self-directedness of life in the centre of the empty grey plane. He begins to long for the reassuring chaos of the sparrows. So, fearful of the new and disconcerting silence, Uyo tries harder and harder to hear something – some proof of the disappeared sparrows’ return. He sits totally still, listening attentively and hopefully. After some time Uyo imagines that he can hear the recurring echo of the sparrows grow louder. A smile returns to his face as the noise increases in his mind. And with the noise come the sparrows, rushing in at him from every direction. As the birds get closer, the four walls of the box fold up around Uyo from the surface of the plane. The roof slowly hinges shut, creating a vacuum that sucks the swarm of sparrows back into the space about the size of a doctor’s waiting room. So Uyo again sits content, comfortable in the chaos that he knows so well. Amongst the noise and the movement Uyo tries to forget the strange period of silence he experienced sitting at the centre of the vast, empty plane. He reasons that he must have imagined it. After all how could the walls of the room have folded out, and the ceiling with them? The room is solid, isn’t it, its walls and roof securely locked in place? And after a time Uyo does forget his time on the plane. It is as if he never experienced the lonely freedom of that great emptiness.
19
Pot Josephine Mandarano
When I was nine or ten (or perhaps a little older – who knows anymore, really?) my dad grew marijuana in the backyard. It came to life some place between the plum tree and rampant vines of fruitless tomato plants near the tool shed. I didn’t know what it was back then, at least not really. Sure, I knew its name and sensed its taboo, but my knowledge extended no further than this. I’m not even sure how I came to know of its existence since it wasn’t something anybody spoke openly about, at least not to my sister or me. I never actually saw it back there either, but I am certain it was there, hiding amongst the vines along the splintered fence palings. * I remember the day my sister called me into her room. She’d spent most of the morning playing in the street with the neighbour’s kids, ignoring me like usual, so I was just grateful for the attention. Her room wasn’t unlike the room of any other girl her age, except that Mum had decorated it with glittered butterflies and porcelain-faced fairies which she had hung from the ceiling with various lengths of fishing line. On this particular day, though, something was different. On the windowsill sat a white plant pot. It was in the shape of a bird or a duck, and it was full of dirt. I had never noticed it before, at least not on the weekend when we’d spent the afternoon rolling marbles along the carpet. It was what she wanted to show me, but I had spotted it before she had the chance. “Where’d you get that pot?” “Dad gave it to me but it’s just dirt. I keep it near the window like he told me, but nothing’s growing. He said it would.” I wondered why dad would give her a pot full of dirt. I knew he must have been playing some sort of trick on her. He liked playing tricks on people – he was good at it – and when he did, he’d laugh about it for days afterwards. One time I sprung him stirring powder into a drink meant for his cousin:
“What is that?” “Laxatives. Here – go give this to him.” I had smiled as I delivered the glass, just as I smiled at my sister now. I was certain of Dad’s betrayal. “There’s probably nothing even in the pot. He’s just doing it for fun, you know.” She thought about my suggestion for a moment. “But he asked me to look after it. He promised me it would grow.” We looked into the shiny white pot. I was confident I was right; that my naïve little sister had been babysitting nothing but dirt. I reveled in my cleverness for only moments before I noticed it. A plant had begun to sprout. “There is something in here. Look!” I pointed at the oddly shaped green leaf that stood in the dirt. It was tiny and definitely not worthy of the pot in which it grew. My sister looked disappointed and then she began to cry. Mum rushed in to see what all the fuss was about. “Mum, Dad said it would be purple but it’s only a tomato plant!” Mum looked at the plant. Then she frowned and furrowed her brow. She kissed my sister on the forehead, picked up the pot and left the room. My sister looked at me. I shrugged. “Want to play Uno?” “Okay.” * I remember seeing the plant only once after that day: in my parent’s ensuite where it basked in the light that shone through the window until it too disappeared amongst the tomato plants along the back fence.
20
Make Believe Sarah Williams
“Stop. Let’s start.” “But Sthoph! Soooopheeee, nooooo, I’m not ready!” “Except... Oh. I’ve lost a black dress shoe.” My sister and I were hiding in our bedroom at our grandparents place. We were wedged into the corner space behind the door, in front of the bookshelves playing Barbies. Too engrossed in our game to even turn on the light when the sun went down, we had begun losing the smaller accessories in the mess of shag carpet. It didn’t feel like the last summer before high school. All holidays we were tummy down on boogie boards, backs on towels, getting sandy hair and sunburnt noses. At Gramp and Grandma’s we hosed off in the garden then curled up on beanbags in front of the old TV, licking icy poles and watching Mary Poppins on repeat. The adults woke from their sweaty stupors to fix themselves gin and tonics and banish us from the lounge room so we wouldn’t get square eyes. “And what will you do while I’m at work today, Mrs. Banks?” Ken doll was in his formal suit; if I put a black sock on I was sure his boss wouldn’t notice the missing shoe.
spitty ‘s’ escaped through the gap. I tried so hard not to make fun, but her effort and her horror, rather than the lisp itself, had me snorting every time. Hannah had kept the tooth; I think because she thought she could put it back in one day, like Grandma with her falsies. She kept it in the bookshelves, balanced atop a precarious stack of Enid Blytons. It was teeny tiny, resting at the bottom of an old jam jar filled with water. It looked like a coconut jellybean. I was reminding myself not to eat it when I heard a terrible crash from the bathroom next door. There was scuffling and a thud. I thought something – or someone – had smacked onto the bathroom floor. The fall sent vibrations along the old floorboards into our room, rattling the shelves. Someone was sobbing. It sounded deep but muffled, like a calf mooing through a flannel. Hannah and I leapt up only to crouch back down as the thud of Gramp’s heavy steps came up the hall. The muted grunt against the lock told me not to get in the way. He rapped on door and gently said, “Gammy. Darling. Are you alright in there?” “Oh George, I’m just so useless. So so useless.” “What’s happened darling? Darling?” Nothing.
“I don’t know Misth… Miss-ter… Banksth… Baanks. Sthould… Sh-ould I sthing Sisthter Susthtagen?” Hannah smoothed Barbie’s hair under a straw hat, but the doll was naked. This was the standard I put up with.
Hannah’s jam jar had fallen onto the carpet. Her eyes filled with tears as she picked it up.
“No Hannah, that’s too early. And it’s Suffragette. And remember that the dad doesn’t approve of the mum’s politics? So she wouldn’t really be telling – ”
I whispered to wait and pulled her into me, resting my chin on her head. We stared into the cloudy old water at the ugly little tooth.
“I told you before, I don’t understht… stand! Can’t I justh… just just just be Mary instead? I want her super powers. Look!” she cried, stuffing a few outfits into a paisley, TimTam-sized duffle bag. “We have a carp… I sthaid insthstead! And sthuper powersth!”
“Eunice, are you hurt?”
Two weeks before, Hannah had lost her first baby tooth. She tried so hard not to lisp and she winced every time another
“I want to go Stoph.”
“George! Do something! The moon!” I heard soft footsteps in the hall, the jangle of bangles. Mum. “Hey Dad, is everything okay?” “It’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about Suse.” “Are you sure?” then louder, “Mum are you okay?”
21
Tegan Iverson
“Susanna, I am sure,” said Gramp, firmly drowning out Gammy’s “What?” “Why don’t you go get the girls ready Suse?” he added. “I think they’ve disappeared downstairs.” It was dark in the room. I heard cicadas and Mum pattering away. The handle finally turned, “Who in God’s name were you talking to?” “Gammy, it was Susy… Susanna.” “Just help me out of here, would you?” “Where do you want to go?” Gramp’s voice caught as they started moving slowly past our bedroom towards theirs. “The moon, preferably. Susanna’s a bitch. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. I may be useless but I’m not going to stop my jive. My swing.” I wished we’d left when Hannah wanted to. I held her tighter, hoping she didn’t understand. I tried to concentrate on the Barbies, on the tooth, on comforting Hannah, but Gramp and Gammy passed by our door like snails and I could hear every word.
I felt dizzy and wanted to lie back on the shag carpet. Instead I lifted Hannah out of my lap, quietly opened the door and took her to the lounge. “George, how do I get ready?” “I’ll help you. We’ll put on your face...” I pictured Grandma without make up. I preferred her that way, with soft and dusty grooves on her forehead, in her cheeks and around her cataract eyes. I hated the wet, sheen layer of thick concealer. I imagined the skin peeling off like face paint, lost until stuck back on with foundation, the same way Gramp filled cracks in the window panes with putty. Dad rushed in. “Your mother and I have been looking all over for you, come on!” He ushered us back into the bedroom, turning on the light. “This room is filthy! What on earth is your rotten tooth still doing here? We’re either going to have to throw this out or set it…” Hannah collapsed crying in a ball. I reached for her but my mind was on Gramp. “– picked out your navy slacks remember? How about we do that first and then put your face on, eh?”
“Eunice, we just need to get ready for dinner, darling. Maybe you can do some dancing in the restaurant.”
“My face? Oh of course. You’ll dance with me won’t you George?”
Mum yelled through the house, “Hannah! Sophie! Where are you, honestly? Come on, we need to get you two dressed!”
“Eunice, I will always, always dance with you.”
“How?” “They have a little stage near the–” “I know how to dance, you fool.”
I poked Hannah in the ribs to show her I was hiding the jar under her bed and began packing the Barbies back into their boxes. Maybe somewhere in the carpetbag, amongst all those mini hats and shoes and skirts, I would find Grandma’s missing face.