by Pat Ritter
went to the cash register. When he pushed the key to open the till it made a loud ring sound. Before he could do anything the owner stood behind him and recognized him by name.
He swung around and punched the elderly lady in the chest forcing her bodily back past the open toilet door. When she landed on the floor her head struck the pedestal and knocked her unconscious. The killer thought he’d killed her and returned to the cash register to empty the contents. When he was about to leave he heard murmur sounds coming from her. He knelt down and grabbed her around the waist and as he did so she swung her arms around his waist.
In his right hand hind pocket in his trousers was a knife with the blade sticking out. Her right hand pieced the blade and blood spurted from the wound. In his haste to finally kill the woman the killer pushed her to the floor. Above his head was a cord hanging from the ceiling to switch the light on, he cut the cord with his knife, placed the cord around the neck of the woman and strangled her.
When he appeared in court, headlines in the local newspaper read, ‘The Lady Killer’ was caught.
Word count: 458.
His Or Her Misfortune.
Saturday night became one of those nights which I dread to think about. We attended a birthday party at a hotel to celebrate the seventieth birthday of a friend. I didn’t mind going to dinner at the hotel, it gave me an opportunity to play my favourite gambling game – keno, but my mind wasn’t fixed on celebrating the birthday; instead I wanted to win the major prize in keno.
Whilst waiting for our birthday girl to arrive, I pondered the likelihood of myself celebrating seventy years and wondered if my family would take me to a hotel to celebrate the occasion. We waited for the other guests to arrive. I asked my partner, ‘do you want to play keno.’
‘Knowing you – you’d probably put it on anyway – put on a game for me then.’ She filled out a gaming coupon. My usual game of keno is to select six numbers, at a cost of ten cents a game, also include the keno bonus and play the same numbers for one hundred games. This gave me five hours of entertainment for a cost of twenty dollars.
I placed a similar game for my partner. She played six numbers at a cost of one dollar per game for twenty games for an investment of twenty dollars. She has no keno bonus and the games play for one hour.
The guest of honour arrived with the remainder of the family and we got to chatting about family things, the weather and how everything else in this wonderful world was going.
When I play keno I always place myself in a position at the table to see each game. My numbers are fixed in my mind so if at anytime one of these numbers appears on the scene my mind takes an excited jump of ‘come on’! In one game, five of my numbers appeared on scene and I was waiting for the number 5 to be drawn to make it six numbers. The bonus game was showing five times the amount. If the number 5 appeared before the conclusion of the game I would win nine hundred dollars. Alas number five didn’t appear so instead I won forty dollars.
A couple of games later my partner turned to me and said, ‘all I need is number eleven to win.’ Her eyes glued to the monitor she wished for number eleven. It didn’t appear. Because five numbers came out instead of six she won eighty dollars. She missed out on eighteen hundred dollars.
Instead of winning a total of twenty-seven hundred dollars between us we won one hundred and twenty dollars. It was his and her misfortune.
Word count: 450.
A Bush Burial.
There’s an old stockman lay dying. His mates stand around him. Entertainer Rolf Harris wobbles his boggy board between his hands and sings, ‘watch me wallabies feed, mate, watch me wallabies feed, they’re a dangerous breed, mate, so watch me wallabies feed. All together now, tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down, tie me kangaroo down, sport, tie me kangaroo down’.
Rolf’s voice echoes through the crowd of on-lookers all concentrating on the old stockman lay dying. In chorus they join Rolf in song heralding the life of the dying stockman. Alas the stockman hasn’t long to live before he meets his maker. His mind returns to when he was a stockman. At aged ten he realised his dream of wanting to work with stock and travel the outback never setting foot in a city.
He was a true blue Australian stockman from the tip of his akubra hat to the soles of his R M Williams boots. He wore spurs everywhere he went and even slept with them on. There wasn’t any part of Australian outback he hadn’t been. He helped to open up the Northern Territory with the sound of horse bells, droving cattle with packhorses, turning the lead when a mob rushed at night; and the many mates he’d worked with throughout his life again entered his mind.
It was a free life on unfenced routes through the back country mustering wild cattle to take to market. At night he rode the Nighthorse that picked its way around the mob. He’d sing in a low tone, country songs to pass away the time and to sooth the resting beasts. He was now at the end of the road not much time to reflect on his past life. Would he have done anything different? No – he was happy and content to go to the wide country above.
Echoing in the distance he heard Rolf Harris singing his favourite song, ‘tie me kangaroo down’ and as it faded he knew he breathed his last breathe. They buried the old stockman where he lay and placed a plague on the headstone which read:
‘Here lies the old stockman who died with his boots and spurs on to rest in peace in the bush he loved.’
Word count: 383
Bright Star.
Aboriginal dreamtime tells us on the passing of one of their people their spirit leaves mother earth and joins the cosmos of stars to form a pattern in the sky. Is it a myth or is it true? Aboriginal elders firmly believe their ancestors’ spirit form shapes and designs in the sky. Then what happens to our spirit as a non-aboriginal person.
In my case I’ve been taught if we were a good person on earth we would go directly to heaven. Is it a myth or is it true? In either way I don’t think anyone has experienced the feeling of heaven nor has knowledge exactly where it is.
Kerry Packer, Australian wealthiest person once stated he’d died and went to the other side and saw nothing. ‘Don’t kid yourself’, he said to a question from a report, ‘there’s nothing there only darkness. I should know because I’ve been there.’
Another time, it was shortly after my mother died many years ago. My sister was nine years old and she asked me where our mother was. Not to disappoint her I pointed to the sky and said, ‘you see the bight star. There she is looking down and watching over us.’
This appeased her; however I didn’t have any evidence to support the bright star was our mother and further could the aboriginal elders be correct in their beliefs our spirits form the sky above? I don’t know. Yes, it may have been a good idea at the time to tell my sister our mother was a bright star looking down on us and to keep us safe. At the time I knew no different whether the fact she was the bright star or not. However, I had no proof and therefore made it up as a lie or untruth to appease my sister’s sorrow at losing her mother at such a tender age.
After my wife lost her fight with cancer, my grandson often said, ‘look Pop there’s Nanna, the bright star in the sky. She’s looking down on us.’ With tears trickling down my face and hugging him I confirmed, ‘yes, it’s Nanna, she will always look down on us and keep us safe.’
Whether it’s mystical or not to a child’s mind there needs to be some hope of continuance with their loved ones. Whether it’s a myth or untrue the bright star could in fact be the person we speak of. Who knows? But until we prove different – we may as well appease our young ones by telling them the bright star is their loved one who sadly left us to look down from above to keep us safe.
Word count: 449
Memories From Address Book.
Until the concept of the internet, I’m afraid to admit I never used an address book. When I was twelve years old my mother gave me an address book as a birthday present. Unfortunately instructions didn’t go with it and I failed to make an entry.
Searching
the inner most thoughts of my mind about memories of an address book can only be prompted when I think about sending or receiving e-mails on the computer. Otherwise my mind is void of such events in my life.
In 2001 I created my website. Each month I published a newsletter. This newsletter contained information about books I’d written included my writing journey. It’s interesting to note looking back to the time; it was unethical to elicit e-mail addresses unless the user voluntarily provided their e-mail address.
When I commenced publishing the newsletter to my interested readers, only ten users received it. Future figures rose to a couple of hundred as word spread. This newsletter contained a two page newspaper format. It was attached to an e-mail and sent to group members. The monthly newsletter was included on the website to keep as a reference and for any person to read if they went to the website. This process worked for a number of years with the expansion to users throughout the world. If a user viewed a newsletter on the website they could register and receive the next newsletter via their e-mail address.
Along came Facebook. How did we ever survive before Facebook I would never know? Facebook uses the e-mail address of each member to connect them to their social network. It is the largest address book in the world. Since the intervention of