~~~
‘She was a dear old thing,’ the young nurse remarked, nodding towards the quiet figure on the bed. ‘She was just sitting in the chair, died, just sitting, very peaceful.’
‘What’s with the tangle of green wool all over the place?’
‘I think she used to knit. As long as she had a ball of wool to unravel she was happy. I think she thought she was still knitting.’
Sunday 19 August 2012
Weatherbeaten
Yeshe Thubten
Totnes Valley, ACT
Weatherbeaten
She gave a splintered sigh
And the tin cracked and popped like popcorn
Bare feet padded the rough boards of her veranda
The bullnose keeping witness.
As I smoothed my hand on the weathered door frame
And asked her to reveal her secrets,
She replied with the silence of
A woman too old and too tired to speak.
The cast iron pot
Lay like a sleeping baby
Amongst the coals in the fireplace
Gurgling and bubbling and warm.
Drawing a hard wooden chair
And sipping some tea
With feet pressed against the chimney
I absorbed this old girl.
A woman of weatherboard and paint
Of hardwood and tin
And she sighed again.
She wanted to tell me of the people who looked out her window
At the gums and the pine
And the rusty tank on its side
And the infinite blue sky.
She offered me a story
Of a man and a woman dancing to a whistled tune
On those rough boards
In the twilight.
Of the little face that peeked through lace curtains
watching
and humming
and smiling.
I asked her forgiveness
As she sheltered me in the inky black
Pierced by a single flame
And we breathed as one.
The fire slipped into slumber
And together we hummed that tune
as the air moved through her cracks
like a whisper.
And in the morning light
She looked like a picture,
Washed out,
Etched in sand.
I slid past her screen door
Banging like a stamped foot
And I caressed her railings
As I jumped from the wooden steps.
I looked back at her
Rusted and beautiful
Held fast
Against the cloudless sky.
The wind shook her bones
Like a windchime
And she said goodbye
With one more sigh.
Yeshe wrote this poem as a snapshot of some kind of Australian ripped from a memory of a house in Yamba she once squatted in.
Monday 20 August 2012
Our Chronic Problem
Ariette Singer
Palmerston, ACT
We see how animals are living so well harmonised
Why can’t we, humans, get similarly organised?
This goal should be even easier for us to realise
Because we’ve evolved and are able to rationalise ...
But, sadly, that is where our chronic problem lies –
We, humans, fail too often to meet on the same lines!
So due to various dissentions, or beliefs of fanatics,
Wars have been fought since human history began:
For reasons territorial, religious, stupidity sporadic –
Too many pretexts! Wars are seldom pragmatic.
What one nation builds, another cruelly destroys
With the latest models of hi-tech military ‘toys’.
As always, the consequences are the same;
Inevitable deaths, horrific devastation,
Physical, mental, and emotional mutilations
Generating new hatreds, misery and lasting pain.
Show me a ‘nice war’ and I will be silent!
Years later, the mistakes are admitted, analysed,
But a new version, in a different geographical location
Is continuously repeated – in almost every generation!
If the mistakes, supposedly, are made so we can learn –
How many tragic lessons have been wasted? All in vain!
We’re stuck in ‘the violence and aggression groove’, it seems.
What force can save us from ourselves? By what means?
Ariette performed this poem for a special ‘Poets for Peace’ event in Canberra.
Tuesday 21 August 2012
Time
Shannon Todd
Empire Bay, NSW
A moment passed is lost forever, never to return,
It’s a lesson that you cannot teach it must be lived and learned.
For while the ticking hand must pass eternally ’round the wheel,
Youth does not know until too late how fate will make them feel.
When faded dreams and hopeless wishes burn with sweet regret,
To haunt their hollow, ageing souls and fill them with torment.
Time lingers for no mortal man, youth cannot remain,
One chance at life and then no more, you cannot live again.
Wednesday 22 August 2012
A Slip To Eternity
Paul Humphreys
Oxley, ACT
He knew he was in trouble when his foot slipped on the moss of the cliff face and his feet dropped below him and he crashed into the wall headfirst. He temporarily lost control of the descent rope and slid about two metres.
His lead glove was wrenched off his hand and was caught tight in the figure eight descender. That was at first lucky as that stopped him from a free fall to the bottom of the chasm. However it also meant that with the descender jammed he could not go up or down.
He hung helpless and horrified at his predicament. He tried desperately to unjam the descender without success.
No one knew where he was. He only had on a T-shirt and shorts and the night was fast approaching. He had no food or water.
It had meant to be an opportunity to get away by himself, to push himself and savour an adventure. Now it was a life-threatening situation.
Darkness came quickly as the sun disappeared over the mountain range behind him. There was a sudden drop in the temperature and he knew that this was not going to be a comfortable night.
The search and rescue party found him two days later.
There had been an unseasonal cold change come through and small patches of snow still lay in pockets around the cliff edge.
As they moved his body back up the cliff one of the search group commented, ‘Did you see his facial expression? It was weird – sort of serene but with a slight smile. Never seen anything like that before.’
They could not have known that his last thought before lapsing into the final sleep was, ‘Crazy. Not heart, hernia or hypertension but hyperthermia got me.’
The challenge was to write a short story in approximately 500 words or less.
Thursday 23 August 2012
Heat
Colleen McMillan
St Ives, NSW
Sun, pours pitilessly from a hard blue sky,
Dry, sucking moisture from the heart of brown earth.
Liberated red dust, and yellowing grasses move across the land.
Umbrella Grass rolls and piles mountainously by fences.
Cattle stand desolate, dehydrated, heads drooping.
Voiceless birds gasp
in limp trees.
Above a wedge-tailed eagle soars, triumphant,
His prey, a lamb born late.
In the town stillness hangs like a pall.
The tonk, tonk, tonk of tennis balls, defeated.
The shrill cries of children at play, silent.
Dusty cars crawl like slow beetles.
Leggy geraniums struggle in dead gardens.
Pointless fans whirl monotonously
And the people sit waiting for evening,
Waiting, waiting, for relief.
Waiting for the rains to come.
Friday 24 August 2012
Shelf Life
Nicholas Brooks
Wollongong, NSW
I was a little nervous about uni; about being in a new place and not knowing anyone. All I wanted was to fit in. But as I walked through campus that first morning, there was something about the way the other students looked past me – no, through me – that was unsettling. I couldn’t get my head around it.
When I showed up to class it began to make sense. The other students’ names were exhibited on the tables in proud scripts of white on red, with lustrous black bubbles rising through the letters in celebration. There was Jessica, whose dark tan and sweeping curves resembled the bottle in front of her, and Kevin, who was short and thickset like the can he held in his hand. In fact, everyone was drinking from a bottle or can that held their name. As if, through drinking Coca-Cola, they’d found a way to skip the burden of awkward introductions. The only exceptions were me, and an old guy across the room who was so plain that if it wasn’t for the grey-white colour of his hair, I probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all.
I don’t remember much of the class, except that seeing all those people take large, confident gulps of self-identity made me more nervous, more insecure, and left me busting to pee.
When we were finished, I ran to the nearest toilet and released a sea of anxiety against the steel wall. As I stood there with my eyes closed, I imagined the others pissing beautiful carbonated streams that sparkled in the sunlight. I saw them framed by television, accompanied by music: something upbeat, summery. But when I opened my eyes, the old guy from class was next to me releasing his own nameless cataract into the trough. I felt embarrassed and shuffled toward the corner of the urinal, but it was too late.
‘Hey bud,’ he said, ‘bunch ’a pretenders that mob, ay?’
I glanced over at him. Not knowing what he meant, I looked down and mumbled, ‘Yeah, I guess.’
After we’d washed our hands, we walked outside together towards the university lawn. All around us students were grouped in big joyous bubbles, talking and laughing amongst themselves as if they'd known each other forever. The word Enjoy flowed through the scene like a dynamic white ribbon. I felt estranged from that ribbon and everyone it encircled as I walked unnoticed across the quad. I wondered how my companion must’ve felt: an outsider not only because of his age, but I assumed, his name as well. When we finally found a seat on the crowded grass, I broke the silence and said what I was sure we’d both been thinking.
‘Y’know, it really bums me out that they don’t have my name on a bottle.’
‘Who?’ he replied.
‘Coke.’
He looked at me incredulously. ‘Why?’
‘I dunno … so … I can fit in, I guess. So people know who I am.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Whaddya mean?’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Oh …’ I hesitated. I hated telling people this, they always thought it was a nickname. ‘Um … Snowy.’
‘That’s your real name?’
‘Yeah,’ I said, rolling my eyes.
He ran his fingers through his hair. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘Well it’s not that I don’t like the name, it’s just that Coke are never going to put it on one of their bottles. I mean, plenty of people have the nickname Snowy, but no one actually has the name.’
‘And you want your name on a bottle so you can fit in? So you can be like everyone else?’
I nodded, despite the fact he didn’t seem to get it.
‘Jesus kid, look around you! Look at all the shit lying around here. Think of all the empty cans and bottles in the streets. You want your name on one of those bottles?’
He had a point about the rubbish. There were old bottles and cans lying everywhere, but they didn’t interest me. What caught my eye were all the students standing there like beautiful celebrities, so dazzling and effervescent.
Meanwhile, he kept talking. I heard the words ‘corporate aggression’, ‘slave labour’, ‘Santa Claus’ – among other things – but I wasn’t really listening, I was too enthralled by this new world I so desperately wanted to be a part of.
‘Are you listening to me?’
I looked back at the strange old man. It was obvious he didn’t get it. He was too uncool, too out of touch.
‘Look, I’m gunna tell ya something, alright. There was this guy who used to work in the Coke plant, like twenty, thirty years ago, making the stuff. Anyway, this guy came up with a recipe for white Coca-Cola – ’
‘You mean like vanilla coke?’ I interrupted.
‘No,’ he said, ‘like pure, white-as-snow Coca-Cola. So of course, when he made it, Coke wanted to bottle it up and sell it to the masses. But this bloke understood that some things aren’t meant to be sold. He knew that white coke wouldn’t really make people’s lives more enjoyable, it’d just be another overpriced illusion. So he left.’
‘Left?’
‘He was the only one with the recipe, so he just up and walked away.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘They’ve been after him ever since! This guy’s been on the run from Coke all this time because he’s got what they want. And they’ll catch up eventually.’
‘I hope so,’ I told him. ‘White coke, that’d be amazing!’
He muttered something under his breath as I looked around at all the bubbles. They sparkled so brightly I didn’t see him walk away.
But he was right, they did catch up. A few months later, after the beauty of the names had faded, leaving behind a mess of empty bottles that seemed plain and uninspired, White Coca-Cola arrived. And it was everywhere, and he was nowhere, and I felt like I finally fitted in.
Saturday 25 August 2012 8 am
Oblivion
Merlene Fawdry
Ararat, VIC
In his dreams he
cast aside his ordinariness.
He is Atticus
a man of noble justice
the moral backbone in
a jellyfish society.
Or Ishmael
story teller
adventurer, wanderer
unneedful of society
to live forever, larger than life
in the minds of men.
He tries them all on
slipping into the skin of
Heathcliff, Rhett and other
archetypal heroes
(or anti-heroes) of
his literary knowledge.
Finding his way in the world
as a young Caulfield, brash
and closer than comfortable
to the Walter of his reality;
meek, mild ineffectual dreamer
doomed on each waking
to oblivion.
Oblivion is one of a suite of poems currently being developed by Merlene on this subject.
Saturday 25 August 2012 12 noon
All Crystal
Irene Assumpter
East Vic Park, WA
When you work so hard all your life
There comes a time
When you can only smile …
Smile when you are told how clueless you are ... ‘how hard life is’
From a soul that knows not the first thing about you ...
A soul that says, ‘Change your attitude
Live with gratitude.’
Smile, still. Keep your cool.
I met someone wow ... someone who put things into perspective
It’s all crystal now. So directive
From a little hill facing The Yarra,
I saw a little boy.
He was not too little; you could say he was a young man.
Lanky. Very coy.
He was minding his own business
He did show some signs of dizziness
I say that because when he tried to get up ... he fell.
He didn’t look well.
He had this look in his eyes.
Cold, I think. Cold like ice.
But he was just sitting there. He seemed calm.
I saw him draw something on his palm
I asked him to show me what it was
It was a horse
Well, a horse of some sort
The boy’s name is Swanson
Swanson said he used to ride horses at some point
He stopped because he had a problem with a joint
For a moment he looks worryingly still
Then he etches the ground with a blunt stick
He said, ‘Melbourne Cup ... in my next life’
I patted his shoulder and said he would be fine
He would ride them again.
You know what he said? ‘You’re a pain’
He said I was just being nice
And that I could just sit there and shut up instead
Talking to him about horses is a mistake
So I left him alone.
When I saw him again, he was much older.
He was in a lot of pain. A broken shoulder
And I realised there was something I should have shown
Something I should have seen
I guess I wasn’t very keen.
I met someone wow ... someone who put things into perspective
It’s all crystal now. So directive
Show him a smile.
A wry one can do.
Even if it looks like a crooked file,
It would be his bright candle.
You can say no word.
It won’t take a while,
But it would mean a world.
His sadness shows ... oh it shows.
And no one knows.
He is a different person inside.
His endless thoughts ... his ideas unsaid.
Maybe if you took the time,
His sadness might go with the tide.
Show him no pity,
The feeling is not pretty.
He is real, he feels.
He wants you to see him, the real wheels.
Ignore his lifeless chair,
It’s really not fair.
He is disabled.
Maybe a little frozen,
Some mop he might resemble,
But you must know, he is not rotten.
I met someone wow ... someone who put things into perspective
It’s all crystal now. So directive.
Irene says:‘All Crystal’ is ideally a song and was written on one of those days when you briefly meet a person who positively (yet unknowingly) changes your view of life.
Saturday 25 August 2012 4 pm
Taking Tea
Jonathan Morgan
Camberwell, Vic
Here I sit, humbly upon my saucer. I await eagerly the faint clinking, the pressure on my dainty handle and the blissfully moist lips on my rim that mark the girl taking a sip. The way she causes the hot liquid to gently move within me is the divine ecstasy of my existence. Occasion times she may notice a trace of lipstick clinging ticklishly to me, and with a graceful stroke of her thumb she removes the transgressor that would come between our sweet embrace.
This afternoon I’m fearful, for I feel forgotten. My sweet, my darling has taken but two sips – and these with a tremor about them. Not the faint waver of her usual fine caress, but marked fearfulness, for the first time I felt in my heavenly hostess a dread nearing despair, the frightful ache of a lonely heart.
A growing coldness fills the both of us, my tea losing its temperature mirroring the cold empty insinuating its way into her soul.
Some people don't believe we have those, but I swear, every ounce of mine own soul rent itself that day, aching to cry out,
‘My love! You are not alone! Your loss is our loss, let us weep together!’
Perhaps the outpourings of my heart found a benevolent ear in the forgotten corners of the pantheon that concern themselves with the likes of me, for my sweet gorgeous, my all and everything, my fairest lady, finally broke from her sorrowful stupor – at last I felt myself raised to her sublime, tear-struck lips.
And since, for everyday from then to my destruction I shall find lovely solace in the thought that as she tasted the sweetness of her one-and-a-half, those tea-spoon-fulls of indulgence which her husband of forty years, now absent from his chair at the tea table, had obstinately refused – that she found in this ritual once more his presence. That forevermore she could take tea with her soulmate, and, for myself, that I could with mine.
Saturday 25 August 2012 8 pm
Bird On A Wire
Jessica Soul
Avondale Heights, VIC
I’m like a single little bird sitting on a wire
Like a song bird who can’t sing
Can’t flap my wings and fly away
A mocking jay of song, no words just sounds to play along
Inside a heart that’s trapped
A yearning, a solid supply of pain
Perching myself on a single whim
Suffering in silence in the wind
Coldness of a teardrop connects with my cheek
It awakens the key
That one I’ve always had inside of me
Like a trigger to a gun
It captivates a longingness sounds to click over
To remember who I was
The girl with a broken heart
A soul of suffrage
Now a silhouette of misfortunes
Now on that wire ledge, with the trigger inside of me
I open up my wings and spread them and soar
Listening to the trigger be pulled
The lost part of me
It’s all said and done
With the slight turn of the key
Bye bye birdy.
Sunday 26 August 2012
The House On Weary Traveller’s Way
Ann-marie Brittain
Bathurst, NSW
The removalist’s van was finally gone and the sun began to set in a blaze of gold. Alice and Maya surveyed the piles of boxes yet to be unpacked and the furniture that sat haphazard throughout the house, but the mess did not daunt either one. The excitement of setting up a new life in a new town was intoxicating. As the sun continued its descent and the shadows in the old building began to deepen Alice went from room to room, switching on lights. Her five year old daughter Maya followed, whooping with delight as they discovered each new space together. Alice felt optimistic. The stress that had aged her before her time seemed to lift from her shoulders and for the first time in a long time she began to laugh again.
Alice sang nursery rhymes to Maya as she pulled dishes and cups out of their boxes and placed them in the kitchen cupboards. She could tell by the happy glow that seemed to flow from within her little girl that Maya was delighted by the recent changes. She felt that Maya would now be able to have the childhood that circumstances had previously prevented.
When most
of the kitchen boxes were empty and the sandwiches Alice had picked up on the long drive to their new home had been consumed, exhaustion caught up with them and they climbed into the big bed in the room that would be Alice’s and fell asleep together. They slept the grateful sleep of prisoners released after a long, wrongful imprisonment.
When morning came Alice rolled over into the empty space left by her daughter. Maya was already up. They watched the sun rise over their new backyard and the smile that shone on Maya’s face told Alice that she couldn’t wait to get out there and play under the trees and amongst the flowers. But Alice was practical and knew they had work to do first.
‘Today we tidy.’
Alice had to hold back a laugh of delight at the sight of her beautiful child pouting and stomping off down the hall into the kitchen. Alice followed slowly and soon began preparing breakfast. After eating she finished unpacking the kitchen then moved onto the lounge room. She smiled when she came across the photo of herself and Maya with Maya’s father at Christmas lunch the previous year. They looked so happy. She sighed as she thought of how dramatically things could change in twelve short months.
By early afternoon Alice was exhausted.
‘Maya, why don’t you go play outside while I take a little nap?’
Soon Alice was woken by an insistent tapping. She tiptoed to the front door and peered through the window that ran down the wall beside it. There was an elderly lady on the front step. She was carrying a covered basket over one arm and she brushed at her hair and smoothed down her dress with her free hand. Alice took a deep, bracing breath and ran her fingers through her own hair. She had known when she decided to move to a small town she would have to deal with nosy, well-meaning neighbours. She had just hoped it would take them longer than a day to figure out she had arrived. The old lady rapped her knuckles on the door again just as Alice pulled it open.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you my dear …’
Alice had to stop her eyes from rolling as she thought, You aren’t sorry or you would have left me alone.
‘I noticed you moved in yesterday and I thought, what with all the unpacking and such, you could surely do with some of my freshly baked muffins. Keep up your energy.’
Alice smiled a bright smile that didn’t quite light up her eyes.
‘Oh do forgive me. My name is Gertrude Watts, I live just up the road, the house on the corner. I was so pleased when I heard someone was moving into this old place. It needs some work but I remember when I was just a child this house was beautiful. It always made me think of the gingerbread house in the fairy tale.’
Alice wasn’t quite sure that was a good thing, after all the gingerbread house was home to a child-eating witch.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name dear?’
‘It’s Alice.’
‘What a lovely name and so fitting for a fairy tale house.’
Gertrude continued in this manner for a full ten minutes. She told Alice all about her childhood. It seemed she had lived in the house on the corner her entire life, and she told her all about the town and the previous occupants of the house that Alice was renting. She didn’t seem put off by the fact that Alice had added nothing to the conversation since stating her name. In fact Alice thought she probably wouldn’t even notice if Alice wasn’t there.
This old woman is lonely, Alice decided and although she felt a twinge of sympathy, she hoped it wouldn’t mean Gertrude would be forever visiting. Alice had moved to this lone house at the far end of an empty street in a sleepy little never-been-heard-of town in order to get away from prying eyes and people with good intentions.
Before Alice realised it the old lady handed her the basket and said goodbye. Alice watched her head down to the road and breathed a sigh of relief.
As Gertrude made her way home she shook her head and thought to herself what a strange, standoffish young woman her new neighbour was.
Alice watched until the old lady had disappeared from sight then she ducked into the yard and called Maya down from her perch high in the willow by the front gate. She was glad the old lady was gone; she wanted time to just be with Maya.
Two days later just as Alice emptied the last box there was another knock at the door. She sent Maya to hide behind the stairs then she opened it.
‘Hi! It’s Alice right? My name’s Jody, I run the local welcoming committee and I just wanted to invite you to the next meeting as a welcome to town. It will be held tonight at my place at six o’clock. It would be wonderful to see you there,’ Jody said without even a pause for breath.
‘Oh I’m sorry Jody,’ Alice replied as politely as she could manage. ‘I won’t be able to make it, my daughter needs me here.’
‘Gertrude didn’t mention a daughter,’ Jody said with a quizzical look on her face.
Alice could barely suppress her annoyance at this stranger’s rudeness. Maybe it would have been better to lose myself in a city rather than this town full of intrusive busy-bodies.
‘Where is the darling? I’d love to meet her,’ Jody continued, looking past Alice into the depths of the house. She didn’t even attempt to conceal her curiosity.
‘She’s upstairs. I’m sorry she doesn’t really like to meet new people and the move has been very hard on her,’ Alice replied stepping into the gap of the open door so she blocked the pushy visitor’s view.
‘Of course, of course. Maybe next time eh?’ Jody waved her hand in the air as she took a step back. She said goodbye and walked out to her car.
Gertrude was right. That woman is weird, Jody thought as she pulled her car away from the curb and headed home.
‘It’s okay, you can come out now Maya,’ Alice called.
She felt a rush of love fill her heart as she watched Maya step out from her hiding place under the stairs. As her precious child ran into the backyard to play, Alice smiled to herself. She was glad she hadn’t made her come out and meet that woman. She could tell from the grimace on her pretty little face that Maya had decided she didn’t like Jody and Alice hoped for her daughter’s sake that Jody wouldn’t bother them again.
I moved here so we could be left alone.
Alice loved the idea that it was just her and Maya. No one else would ever come between them.
After a few more futile attempts the townsfolk gave up trying to talk Alice into joining the community. They spent their time trying to spot the little girl that no one in town had ever met and soon enough something else came along to take the focus off the hermit and her daughter who lived in the house on Weary Traveller’s Way.
There was only one thing that existed for Alice: her daughter. As the weeks flew by she savoured the quiet solitude until one sleepy summer afternoon when there was a knock at the front door. Before Alice opened it she called out to Maya telling her to go out and play in the backyard, but the little girl wasn’t there.
‘Alice?’ called the warm familiar tones of the husband she had left behind.
When Alice heard that voice something inside her cracked and a torrent of tears flowed down her face.
‘Alice I know it’s hard since Maya died, but it’s been nearly a year. You need to let go, move on with your life. I miss you Alice and I don’t like thinking of you here all by yourself. Please, come home.’
Monday 27 August 2012
Blackout At Blackheath
Virginia Gow
Blackheath, NSW
Misty morning. Blackout warning!
Burning perfumes fill the air.
Heat the house before supply runs out.
Cook bacon and eggs, take care!
Now cold does creep through
Cozy cottage cabin cracks; tin roof mumbles and creaks.
No internet, no landline, no radio, no television, no hot water, no light,
Magnificent distractions; frayed and fizzled out.
Back to basics!
Back to candle’s flickering flame.
/>
Back to thinking; imagination; meditation.
Send a text to one who cares.
And the voice comes clearly over the mobile,
‘Have no fear for in the night
The brightest star will light your room
And help you slumber in the gloom.’
‘Starlight, star bright first star I see tonight
Wish I may, wish I might,’ dream a fixing dream tonight!
Virginia fancies that she extended the blackout just a little.
Tuesday 28 August 2012
The Reflection
Jordan Russo
Bullaburra, NSW
He wagged his finger at her. ‘Okay, make no eye contact with him for more than a second. Do not look at him frequently either.’
Etheenchn made a face. ‘Oh, but it is rude to not look at someone when they speak to you!’
The General shook his head and laughed, ‘For us it is, but to these people, it is polite and we are in no place to languish in our sense of etiquette or ethics – we cannot take anything for granted. Our empire could solidify a treaty with another empire. Imagine the strategic value that would have. As General I am in charge of the defence of this city and ultimately our entire empire. It is the same war raging in a time of peace that has raged since people called it war. Peace is an illusion, a fabrication of the mind. The truth is that war breaks out in a variety of ways and you’re either learned and practised enough to conquer your opponents, or you’re not.’
Etheenchn pursed her lips and gazed out the window at the sky. Clouds covered the sky in greys and blues. The air had chilled. Etheenchn closed her eyes remembering her father, Yexoloven, saying words to the same effect. She remembered his azure eyes with all their strength as he had given her the codes to the locks of the Forbidden Rooms, denied access by any rank lower than leader of the empire.
‘So, when must I meet this emperor and get this over and done with?’
The General smiled. ‘Emperor Tonga has already left. He wanted to meet you and set this treaty in writing. I told him you would be eager to meet him in person and finally talk with him. Due to the vast distance between our empires, the organising had to be done with lords further out. I know you have been deliberating over the communications between Emperor Tonga and the various lords relayed to you for consideration, but I feel we need to move to strike this deal with him now.’
He scratched his bearded chin. It had gone completely grey in the last year. He had also taken up a walking stick in the last year. His skin had wrinkled further and he had grown slower. It was amazing how age could suddenly leap out like this. Etheenchn bit her lip. Her father used to put a lot of trust in this man. Emperor Tonga sounded a real high and mighty prick to her.
A few hours later Etheenchn walked down to one of the Forbidden Rooms. She said the magic code and entered into a huge arching room of gold, piled high with old and ancient items of unknown and untold powers. She found the clearing the genie could usually be found in. He was gone. So she started searching around the room. Squeezing between two giant mountains of thick gold coins, she found herself gazing into pitch black. She saw a torch conveniently lying by the gold and picked it up. She picked up two firestone figurines and struck them together as quickly as she could. It took time but finally she got it right and a good strong spark hit the torch. The oil flamed up and she had a torch alight. What amazing convenience. The shiny, wax-like rocks of a cave mouth curved around and lumpy stalagmites rose up. ‘Genie!’ she called. Her voice echoed everywhere.
There was a mirror on the ground edged in a wavy gold frame. Etheenchn walked over to it, kneeled down and peered at her face in the mirror. Green jewels matching her green eyes cascaded down her hair, tying it into columns.
The following day, she travelled in a horse-drawn armoured carriage surrounded by Royal guards. She had left a note in the Forbidden Room asking the Genie Hiripiut to join her as she travelled to a city at the northern edge of the Green Province – the empire was so big, it was divided into many provinces ruled by princes. As empress, Etheenchn had authority over the princes. The journey seemed to be taking a long time but she guessed she was probably just tired of being in the carriage looking out at a monotonous view of lumpy green hills and reddish rock. The cobblestone road had also become overgrown with grass and yellow-flowering bristles. The road gradually disappeared further and further under the grass and bristles as they followed it between two boulders. Etheenchn got straight out of the carriage as soon as it stopped and took a moment to stretch her limbs and back. She took a drink from her water flask and then placed it on the floor inside.
She looked around and placed her hands on her hips. Pointy, blonde blades of erect grass and reddish brown boulders were all that could be seen. No village, not even a sign saying ‘Village one kilometre away,’ and yet there should be, by now.
‘What is going on?’ she asked, sensing something wrong. One of the guards came up to her. ‘Your Majesty, it seems that the map being used is wrong.’
‘What!’ she cried, lifting her arms out from her hips. The guard shifted his feet and looked back at a group of guards huddled in a murmuring group. ‘Your Majesty, we think this map is out of date.’
Etheenchn went beetroot-red with frustration ‘We need to get to the Rim on time! You know the importance of this particular singular trip!’
The guard nodded, looking her in the eye. ‘Your Majesty, the map maker may have been remiss in his job, but we shall not be. The land should be similar. If we keep going forward I am sure we shall find the next checkpoint. In the meantime, we saw a lake from further back on the higher ground. Water is, at least, at hand.’
Etheenchn sighed and rubbed her temple, nodding. ‘Good. I was afraid we’d have to backtrack.’
‘Your Majesty, I do not know these parts but I assure you we have only stopped to rest the horses, refill our water flasks and check our next marker on the journey. If my memory of the map serves me well it will be another village named Chaw.’
Etheenchn nodded. ‘What is your name?’
‘Attorse, Your Majesty.’
‘Well, Attorse. I want to refill my flask on my own. I want to bathe ... and I want to be last.’
He bowed, ‘I shall pass the message, Your Majesty.’
Nice one, Etheenchn, she thought to herself. Creating problems that do not exist. But why should a wise person such as myself make such an error?
Later that afternoon, as the sky turned orange, she walked up the slant in the landscape and a smooth and glistening blue lake rose to view. She walked down to it. A light sprinkle of sparse-leaved trees surrounded the area as far as the eye could see. She came down to the edge of the lake and dipped her toe into the cold water. She shivered and looked around. Then she knelt down and gently ran her water bottle through the water enjoying the sensation. She slowly arced it up and watched the water trickling down from the rim. She wound the lid back on.
Something odd caught her eye. She looked back down at her reflection in the water, the image wonky as the water was still rippling from the action of the bottle being swept through the water. The reflection waved at her. She stood up suddenly and backed off. The reflection of Etheenchn climbed out of the lake and smiled. The reflection walked towards her calmly. ‘I sense frustration,’ it said in a voice that sounded as Etheenchn might, underwater.
Etheenchn shook her head. The reflection continued on to say, ‘Ridiculous customs of other empires, time constraints ... ’
‘What are you?’ Etheenchn asked, feeling shock shake her body. The reflection cocked its head. ‘You.’
Etheenchn laughed and then slipped backwards. Dazed, she blinked as she felt a distinctive pain. The reflection leant over her. Etheenchn felt her head and saw blood on her hand. The reflection looked wet all of a sudden. The purple clothes hung tightly to her body and her skin dripped water. Her hair hung in wet cl
umpy strands and droplets upon the jewels keeping her hair in thick columns glittered in the failing light’s last rays. Its lips parted slightly as it looked down at Etheenchn. ‘You could escape all this by coming back into the lake with me. You could settle with a man there in my world. We could be the best of friends. You’re a powerful Empress. You need not be the one to meet this other powerful Emperor. It might impress him that you have so little concern. One of your delegates who are with you now would be able to arrange for the alliance to be signed and both sides would still be content.’
Etheenchn got up and ran her hands down her thighs slowly. She thought about the handsome guards that were nearby and gazed at the water, then at the reflection. Her reflection. Something inside her was shifting toward a discernable state, an idea beginning to form. She could feel it coming. The reflection slapped a cold hand on her shoulder. ‘You deserve to relax and engulf the fruits of this physical world.’
Etheenchn closed her eyes feeling a sense of pleasure at the possibilities. She was tempted. But then she heard a bird singing. It had the sound of the ancient Purple Feathered Hawk. Jalen liked them and had an uncanny tendency to spot them in the sky before anyone else. She liked spending time with Jalen. Playing those board games with him. But more than that, come to think of it. There were other things she liked at the castle. She enjoyed it when she completed a hard task with optimistic results. She opened her eyes. Like often when a person has closed their eyes, she saw the colours as richer for just a moment. ‘I will meet this Emperor, ridiculous or not. I am not impatient with people for such petty things, as small differences in custom.’
One month later she waited in the lush courtyard of a small palace in the Rim. The Emperor Tonga was black of skin and had smoky blue eyes. He wore an attractive blue and gold robe and was protected by tall, dark, red-clad guards. He smiled, looking at her. ‘Empress Etheenchn, I hear your customs of etiquette are different. I will not take offence to any small aberrations. What I prefer to know is the character of this ruler before me.’
She raised an eyebrow, allowing her gaze to glance away from looking directly into his eyes. He was not such an idiot after all. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ve taken great interest in learning your ways. I am confident I know them.’ As he smiled, and she did not know what sort of smile it was as she did not yet know the actual man, she felt suddenly that she had made the right choice. She felt glad for it.
Wednesday 29 August 2012
With Your Guitar
Tamara Pratt
Mount Gravatt, QLD
You strum the guitar gently
to a song with
a familiar melody,
and lyrics that have
special times and places
attached to each one –
and for a moment,
I glimpse a memory –
a time
when I was young, carefree
and beautiful.
I danced with bare feet,
long dresses and was giddy
with life and love
and all that which brings
and bears
hope to a young girl’s soul.
You sing with the acoustic rush
of highs and lows,
and your voice lingers in the air –
poised, still
only to fade to a quiet reflection,
and stop.
My heart skips a beat
at the places that your
words and song
lead me –
a time when love wasn’t lost
on a face in the room
and the eyes that
sought me out
within a crowd
were those that loved me,
adored me.
With your guitar, and your voice,
my memories now subside, and
I am alive again.
Thursday 30 August 2012
The Picture Frame
Peter Goodwin
Warilla, NSW
for Sophie
Josephine died three days ago.
Her mother nailed a photograph of Josephine
in her school uniform to the fig tree
in front of the church near where she died.
Josephine was nine years old, a year ahead
of my daughter at catholic school.
They knew each other well enough
to play together when their best friends
were at choir practice or at home sick.
From the balcony where I sat at a small wooden table,
blackening my private papers, my simple words,
I caught glimpses, when I looked up, of my daughter
running hysterically and laughing madly
with the other children behind the tall iron railings
in the quadrangle of the school.
I watched the storm coming slowly towards us
from the west. It cast a dark green light
on everything in its dominion. When it hit,
big lunch was over, the children back in their classrooms.
The storm was still upon us when school finished
as though it had no wish to leave, its work undone.
In the corner of the quadrangle where we
always gathered, I stood with the other parents
in the darkness and the rain as though
we were standing at the base of the cross.
Under the shelter of a black umbrella,
my daughter and I walked through a narrow gate
at the back of the school. Clinging together,
as we leaned into the wind taking little treacherous steps
and singing a song to ourselves, we made it safely,
after a minor fright, across the road to our home.
At assembly the next morning,
the priests under the trees sheltering from the sun,
we heard the news of Josephine’s death.
She had left the school with her mother
in the opposite direction to us,
through the main gate, passed the church.
She was holding her mother’s hand
as they crossed the avenue of black dripping trees
when a car breaking too late in the turmoil
hit and hurled her into the gutter.
At home my daughter and I looked at
Josephine’s photograph on the front page
of the local newspaper.
My daughter recognised the bracelet
on Josephine’s left wrist and explained to me
it was a present from Jessica, their mutual friend.
We read together the story of her death.
At bedtime, I sat with my daughter.
We did not talk about Josephine.
I stayed by her side until she fell asleep.
After returning my daughter to her mother
for the weekend, I tidied up her room.
On her desk by the window in a pink picture frame
was the photograph of Josephine
my daughter had cut from the newspaper.
Friday 31 August 2012
Two Hours Till Sunday
Chloe Loughran
Brunswick, VIC
Another Saturday
I’ve been looking out the window for hours now
I predict who will walk past next
And what’s waiting for them at home
A man walks past in a hurry
I have no idea where he's going
But my theories will substitute that
In the freezing
cold he strolls past
Nothing but a jacket and a hat
Psychically
We are connected
Only for seconds
We’re not alone
To a certain degree at least
I wonder if he sees the days as they are
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
I see this man as Saturday
That is his name
He will be placed
With my other Saturday memories
Right in this moment
We are not alone
I live in him
He lives in me
To a certain degree at least
His name is Saturday, along with the others
If only there were more names
For the days I’ve lived
Saturday 1 September 2012
narratorAUSTRALIA Volume One Page 47