Tell it to The Dog
Page 17
The wave which had threatened all day gathered in crescendo in the canyons and byroads. The sun was blotted and blackened as the vast volume of water rose and swelled, sweeping us all in its wake, petals bubbling in the foam.
IN THE FOREST
The sweet lullaby from so deep in the forest: it’s from the tiger, the spirit that traces the veins in the leaves of the canopy. The blink of the eye as the slightest brush of the branch lets in the light from the sunbeam. The gaur deer, grazing by the old fort, look up. The music of the forest alerts them to life. The tiger in the forest, deep within the forest trees, yawns in repose, aware, in tune, looking out.
WALKING BY THE PIER
He took the train to the seaside, so as to walk on the beach. Under the pier, where the seaweed festooned the stanchions, he found the dead seagull and the pile of pebbles that had gathered as a headstone. He could hear the day-trippers walking along the wooden planks of the boardwalk above where he stood. Kneeling by the dead bird, as the neon lights from the Ferris wheel caught the curve of the ocean, he stroked its oily head, put a pebble in his pocket and said a prayer to the wind.
MARSHMALLOW
I lived inside a marshmallow, in a packet, hanging from a hook in the newsagent’s on the corner of the street. Only one little boy chose me. He gestured to lift the packet from the rack, but his father chastised him. ‘Too sweet and sugary.’ So his eyes moved on from the large white and pink lumps in favour of the rows of chews and chocolates. The small boy left the shop, chocolate bar and father in hand. And me? Left hanging on the shelf. Sugary sweet and waiting.
THE BLACKSMITH AT THE FORGE
He’s been up for so long, hammering at the anvil in the open doorway of the courtyard. It’s still dark. His breath meets the cold of the pre-dawn air. The sweat trickles into his eyes. The metal from the forge is fierce and fiery and he has to work fast, so as to finish before she wakes. In the distance, the mist is peeling back the mountains, presaging the ripening of the sky. Hammer and metal and anvil and fire. He must get things into shape before the baby stirs in his crib and sets the breastmilk aflowing. A hawk hovers above, attracted by the activity and the resplendence of the scene, watching the sparks fly. But it turns away on the wing at the sighting of a fieldmouse in the meadow and the promise of the hunt.
FACE PAINT AT THE CIRCUS
The rain teemed down. The big top sagged and the clown tripped and bruised his ankle. The wheel fell off the unicycle and the juggler dropped the flaming torch. But the kids cheered and whooped at the antics, the lights were bright and colourful and the show went on as always. Later on, the clown sits on the sagging bed in his caravan, sweat and face paint, the rouged teardrop trickling down his cheek: exhausted, wearied, worn down to his last hurrah. He looks into the mirror, misted by the damp night air. He pulls off the plastic wig and falls back on the mattress, staring up at the broken fan until sleep grabs him, until it is time to pack up the tent and move on to the next town.
NO WINGS, NO FLIGHT, NO DINNER TONIGHT
The fledglings, the tiny birds, more like embryos still. Gawping and gasping at air. Waiting to taste the worm. Tasting the day for the feathers and flutter of return. Wide-open beaks clutching at an empty sky. Their protector and provider retrieved from the marsh, limp in the jaws of the dog, the package of grubs fresh in its croup.
Tiny blind eyes, never to see. This last reaching for the sky.
FRUIT
I was diluted. I lived in a jar, inside a trunk, carried across continents, from mountain range to ocean port. Wrapped in silk and parcelled in thick brown paper. Mummified in masking tape to avoid breaking apart in transit. Deep in the hold, holding on and in for all I was worth, the lid kept tightly screwed down. Swooshed from glass side to glass side, amid stewed apples and succulent apricots that were picked in the summer, labelled and set aside on pantry shelves for winter toast and thick and creamy custard. Steaming. Stewed. In a dark place. Locked in a trunk. Behind a pantry door. Hidden away. Hiding away.
THE GARDEN PARTY
The invitations had long been posted. The preparations were well under way and the weather promised a balmy summer’s evening, with a bright moon and sparkling stars. In the ballroom, the tables were laid with silver and china, crystal and ebony. The chandeliers glittered and the candles illuminated the drops of spring water on freshly washed fruit, piled high for the guests. In the garden, the bunting waved in the warm late-afternoon breeze and the lake lapped against the shore, the small rowboats bobbing at their moorings.
All was ready. The musicians in the summerhouse tuned their instruments; the cooks in the kitchen turned up the ovens and tossed the salads. A thousand candles were lit, and the carriage wheels could be heard on the gravel of the drive, the neighing of the horses presaging the arrival of guests.
The ball was magical. None had witnessed such colour and warmth, camaraderie and reconciliation. That night would remain in the hearts and souls of all who had witnessed the setting of the moon and the rising of the dawn.
‘And so it was for you, too?’ said the old man to the Pirate Captain, as they rowed across the lake to the pagoda on the small wooded island.
And there, among the trees, they found the small boy with his dog.
Together they explored nooks and crannies, chewed on walnuts and peaches, and told each other of experience, strength and hope. How, out of loneliness and misdeeds, despair and destruction, they had found understanding and acceptance, serenity and companionship. From the house, lit against, silhouetted against, the reddening sky of the awakening morn, soft refrains wafted across the lawns and shrubberies, meadows and woodlands, the musicians caressing and easing the day into life. And, as the dawn chorus broke, as the birds offered their own song, the long-awaited baby entered the world, his mother straining and exhausted, replete and exhilarated, lying in the room at the very top of the house. Holding the babe in her arms, knowing and feeling all the love of the world, she softly sang the song of hope.
LIKE YELLOW PAPER
Ageing fades upon you. Yes, like yellowing paper. Like a creaking door. A hinge in need of oiling. Somewhere down the corridor, out of sight. Around a corner in the darkened passage. It’s still dark. Not yet morning. You lie in your bed listening to the door being buffeted by the wind. Albeit gently. Something indicative in the squeaking sound of metal on metal. Something revealing in being reluctant to move. To place your feet on the cold floorboards. To go downstairs to the kitchen cupboard in search of the oil can. Just listen a while longer. Let it meld with the wind. The branches on the window. This yet another winter’s morn. And, reaching, stretching, behind to the wall above the bedstead. A chill in the tips of your fingers. Touching the join in the wallpaper. A bloodred rose, petals expertly matched. Aligned. All that time ago. By your father. Who, one spring weekend, decorated the room. ‘Flowers,’ he said. ‘Flowers on the wall.’
ENDGAME
Waves crest like cutlass, the lighthouse is leaking, cormorants are surfing from cliff face to sound. The chimney stack’s blackened, the clouds bank on furlough, a jackdaw is shining a shilling it’s found. Who’s this who is creeping, his footprints to soften, the moon his betrayer, the night as a pawn? So fasten the deadlock, the owl’s an intruder, the shadows are stalking the mist on the lawn.
EPILOGUE: ONE LAST WALK
It’s my last day in Lhasa: 25 November 2016. Everyone agrees our work is truly benefiting the health of the people of Tibet. It’s good to have purpose. To have meaning. I decide to take a final circuit around the temple. This walking meditation. This route. This kora, uninterrupted for centuries. It frees up the mind, opens up the spirit.
As I walk I think of a void. Like a stadium. Not the colosseum in Rome, which first comes to mind. Nor the famous MCG in Melbourne, which opens out to the blue Australian sky, but one that has a roof to enclose and hold the space. So I picture the stadium by Southern Cross Station. It holds about fifty thousand people. I imagine myself astride the structure. I summo
n the roof to close. And I call the stadium the universe. There’s a tiny hole at the very top and I begin dropping into the void fresh green snow peas, harvested from Wanneroo in Western Australia. After a long time, but maybe only a short time in the scheme of things, the stadium is packed full with peas. Two hundred and forty billion peas. There’s no room for a single pea more. And in my envisaging, each pea represents a galaxy in our known universe. That’s what the astrophysicists, cosmologists and mathematicians have deduced, though new evidence suggests the true figure is closer to two-and–a-half trillion galaxies. I reach in and pick out one of the peas. I mould it into a cube and call it the Milky Way, our galaxy, one that is a trillion kilometres wide and a trillion kilometres deep. With my fingernail I scratch an indentation into the skin of the pea. There’s our solar system, our sun, our planets, our earth, ourselves. Then, as I must, I put the Milky Way pea back into the universe to keep all in order.
A small Tibetan Terrier snuffles by. I have a yak momo dumpling in my pocket that was left over from lunch. I break it open and offer it to the little dog. He sniffs the half-cooked meat, gives it a lick, then walks by to join the rest of the throng. Unlike the passing policemen, he knows he must walk clockwise.
Now I turn the stadium into a piece of dough, with all the peas inside, and knead and press it flat. An infinite number of other universe stadia float down from above. These I press flat on top of our universe and then fold them all together, under and over each other. Countless universes all melded into one.
This is what the scientists tell us is the multiverse.
But here’s the delicious part. Every atom in the multiverse is connected to every other atom.
As I walk on, on this my final kora of the day, it makes me realise that the atoms in my heart are connected to the atoms in Ralphie Dog’s heart and his heart is connected to the hearts of all the dogs in Lhasa.
And I have one final thought as I stand in front of the temple entrance, listening to the sounds of the bodies of the pilgrims as they rise and fall and prostrate themselves on the ground before their holiest of holies. I know I’ll return many times to Tibet, as an older man and then as an even older man. And if Ralphie Dog does die before me and is reincarnated as a small boy, then maybe I’ll meet him in the Barkhor of Lhasa and we’ll walk together then sit and rest under that noble Bodhi tree. And we’ll recognise each other for who we are and we’ll tell each other what we know and what we’ll come to know and how we’ll share in this wondrous, unfathomable business of meeting life.
ALSO BY ROBERT POWER
In Search of the Blue Tiger (Transit Lounge 2012)
The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy (Transit Lounge 2013)
Meatloaf in Manhattan (Transit Lounge 2014)
Tidetown (Transit Lounge 2015)
Lulu in New York and other Tales (Unicorn Press 2017)
Robert Power was born in Dublin, spent close to fifty years based in London, and now lives in Melbourne with his wife, Tanya, and youngest son. He has worked for over thirty years in international health across most regions of the globe and is currently an Adjunct Professor at Monash University and an Honorary Professor at the University of Melbourne. He has published over 120 articles in academic journals, including The Lancet, AIDS, Social Science and Medicine, and The British Medical Journal, alongside journalism for the likes of The Age, The Guardian, New Society and The New Statesman. His first novel, In Search of the Blue Tiger (2012), was short-listed for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. It was followed by two further novels The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy (2013), and Tidetown (2015) and a collection of short-stories, Meatloaf in Manhattan (2014), all published by Transit Lounge. His latest work, Lulu in New York and Other Tales (Unicorn Press, 2017), is a collaboration with the acclaimed American painter, Max Ferguson, in which Power has written 500-word stories depicting sixty of Ferguson’s pictures.
www.robertpowerauthor.com