narratorAUSTRALIA Volume Two

by narrator AUSTRALIA

  ***Editor’s Pick***

  perched

  each on a chair arm

  swaddled in gently falling smoky strings

  of roll-your-own

  they watch his mouth

  a teasing ‘O’

  small shoulders tense

  fists ball on collar bones

  ribs ache with waiting

  and just before they must

  shrug or scratch a foot

  he releases

  a perfect silent ring

  they gasp as it wobbles

  on unseen currents

  and try to grasp its magic

  as I do now

  Ed: I found this to be a beautifully crafted story of innocence and love, but was enthralled with the concept of setting it against a backdrop of something which we now perceive to be evil and to be avoided at all costs. It harks back to a simpler time, and I feel grief emanating quite solidly from the last two lines.

  Saturday 26 January 2013

  Speak English Please

  Peter Shankar

  West Ryde, NSW

  ‘I can’t believe that you would do this to me, Wong. After I especially asked you to speak English today, you still insisted on speaking Chinese. How could you?’ Lee yelled at her best friend. She was furious! How could Wong do this to her? ‘And my name is Linda now not Lee!’

  Lee and Wong had been friends since they were five years old, growing up in the poorest part of China together. Through some twist of fate, both girls had applied for jobs with an Australian company that had been looking for workers from China. It had been sheer luck that they had both ended up in the same place as many hundreds of people had applied for the fifty jobs that were available. So, at age twenty they found themselves working at the same company and sharing a small apartment in Sydney.

  Lee had fallen in love with Australia the moment she had set foot in it. The people were so friendly and easy going, and in no time at all Lee had made some great friends at work, started a TAFE course to learn English and joined a local bushwalking group. She quickly picked up the Australian vernacular and, after only five years in Australia, it was hard to tell that she had ever spoken anything other than English.

  It had been a great comfort for both girls having each other in a strange country. It had been difficult for them leaving their families behind, but it had been the chance of a lifetime and neither of them could ever go back and lose face, their families would be in disgrace if they blew this opportunity, so being together had been a source of strength for both of them.

  But Wong missed China much more than Lee did. She often complained of how lazy and loud Australians were, how difficult it was to understand them. How could Lee stand being amongst them so much of the time?

  Lee couldn’t understand it. She didn’t hear their loudness, she just heard the kind words. She never thought Australians were lazy, they just took one thing at a time. Lee absolutely loved the Australian bush and spent many happy weekends hiking and camping with groups of friends who shared her love of the bush.

  Wong had become a bit of a loner. She had joined a Chinese club where Chinese people of all ages came together to dance and eat traditional Chinese food. The only time she ever went out was when she went out with her Chinese friends. Her English was stilted and broken with Chinese words mixed throughout. She really didn’t feel comfortable talking English and found it hard to express herself. It was just easier to start shopping in Chinatown in the city. At least there the shopkeepers got her orders right and didn’t snicker at her broken English.

  Lee was impatient with Wong. ‘You’re not in China anymore, you need to speak English.’

  ‘But it’s too hard Lee, you don’t understand. It’s okay for you. English is easy for you. You speak it like you were born here. Don’t you want to be Chinese anymore?’

  ‘I speak it well because I speak it often! You don’t even try.’

  ‘Yes I do! I have to speak English at work don’t I?’

  ‘You speak mainly to Mrs Chan, I’ve seen you. You ask her to talk to Karen for you. Have you ever actually spoken to Karen yourself?’ Wong’s angry flush was answer enough.

  And now this. Lee had met an amazing Australian man, Steven Anderson, at her bushwalking group and she had brought him home to meet Wong. She had specifically asked Wong to speak English and to call her ‘Linda’, the name she had adopted a year ago, but Wong had insisted on talking Chinese the entire time he had been there and calling Lee ‘Lee’ instead of Linda. Lee was furious and knew it was time for her to move out and told Wong so.

  ‘I’m sorry, Wong, but I’m going to find somewhere else to live. You knew how important this was to me and you made Steven feel so uncomfortable. He tried to be friendly to you and you pretended you didn’t understand a word of what he said. I can’t live like that. I want a home where I can bring my friends without them feeling like imposters.’

  Wong was hurt and upset, and also afraid to lose the flatmate who could speak enough English to order the takeaways. But Lee had been adamant and two weeks later had moved into her own place. That hadn’t lasted long though, as two months later Steven had proposed, and eight months later they had married and moved into a small house out in the suburbs. Two years later they had welcomed a beautiful son. They tried for more children but sadly they only ever had the one boy, Peter.

  Lee still kept contact with Wong but not very often. They would see each other in passing at work but rarely socialised. Wong had also married, to an older, wealthy Chinese man that she had met at the Chinese social club. Lee and Steven were invited to their wedding.

  Wong fell pregnant not long after her marriage and quit her job at the factory and after that Lee didn’t really hear much from her anymore. Of course, when Wong had each of her three children she phoned Lee and Lee would call Wong whenever something big happened in her life, but apart from that they rarely spoke.

  While the children were small they invited each other’s children to birthday parties but even that became uncomfortable. When the party was held at Wong’s house, Lee’s son felt like a fish out of water, as only Chinese was spoken and all the other children there were Chinese. Lee’s son didn’t understand Chinese very well and found the foods and customs different to what he was used to;. At home it was standard Australian food: potatoes, meat and three veg, with party food consisting of lollies, chips, fairy bread, party pies and sausage rolls.

  And when the party was at Lee’s house, Wong’s three children felt left out as their English was not strong. They didn’t like the Australian party food and refused to mingle with the other kids, keeping to themselves and having their own private party. By the time they hit double digits even birthday parties no longer brought them together.

  Lee was sad about her lost friendship but she had a full life and had made many more friends to fill the gap that Wong’s friendship had left. She was still working at the same factory but had risen in the ranks and was now in management. She and her husband still hiked and enjoyed weekends away with their friends and their son rarely felt the loneliness of being an only child. Their house was filled with his friends and it was not uncommon for three or four friends to sleep over most weekends or go on a hiking trip with them.

  The years raced by. Lee’s son was now in his twenties but still came home on a regular basis. He would often bring home lovely girls of all nationalities but as yet had not found the right one. Lee was only working three days a week by now – they were comfortable and there was no longer the need to work as many hours as possible. Lee loved working in her garden; really, she just loved being outdoors and thought Australia was really the best country of them all. So little rain, so much time for outdoor activities.

  Lee was musing over her many blessings while she was gardening when she heard the phone ring inside. Damn, she thought, I’ll never make that on time. But she tried anyway. Sure enough, by the time she got to the back door the answering machine had picked up. She wa
s just about to turn around and go back to the gardening and let the answering machine deal with it when she heard Wong’s voice. She could hear it was Wong but she couldn’t understand what she was saying. She was hysterical, crying and saying something about an ambulance. Lee snatched open the screen door and raced inside and picked up the phone.

  ‘What’s wrong Wong? Slow down, I can’t understand you!’ More spluttering noises from the other end. Lee tried again. ‘Wong, stop it! What’s wrong?’

  Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, Lee started to understand. Wong’s husband had had some kind of an accident and was lying on the ground, apparently dead or dying, according to Wong.

  ‘Call an ambulance!’ Lee almost screamed. ‘Why are you calling me?’

  ‘I did, they’re coming. They were counselling me on phone to help my husband before the ambulance arrived. I don’t know what to do, they are taking him away right now,’ Wong wailed. ‘Please help me Lee.’ Lee couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Okay, I’ll meet you at the hospital. I’ll be there as fast as possible.’ And she promptly hung up on her old friend. Lee arrived at the hospital as soon as she could, but by the time she got there it was all over. She found a distraught Wong in the waiting room, waiting for one of her sons to come and get her.

  ‘He’s dead, Lee, now what do I do? It’s my fault. They said he wouldn’t have died if I’d followed their instructions accurately till the paramedics arrived, he might have had a chance. It’s all my fault.’ Before Lee could say anything, a nurse appeared at the waiting room door.

  ‘Mrs Huang?’

  ‘Yes?’ Wong said tremulously.

  ‘Your son just phoned to say he can’t pick you up until five-thirty.’ Wong looked at her blankly.

  ‘Your son can’t get here till five-thirty,’ Lee translated for her. ‘That’s still two hours away. You can’t stay here by yourself for that long,’ Lee said, horrified at the thought. Wong had never learnt to drive, she said all the traffic made her nervous and that people always shouted stuff at her. ‘Look, I’ll give you a lift home. Come on, my car’s out in the top car park.’ Lee dropped Wong home and stayed with her for a while.

  A few days later the funeral was held. Lee dropped Wong home since one of her sons, Chan, was abroad and couldn’t make it for the funeral. Wong said it was okay and that she could make it home by herself but Lee insisted.

  Lee pulled up out the front of her friend’s huge mansion. Wong had barely said a word all the way home, Lee guessed it was shock.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you inside.’ She got out and went around and helped Wong out of the car like she was an old woman. Gently she helped her up the front stairs and to the front door. Wong’s hands were shaking so badly she couldn’t get the key in the lock, so Lee unlocked the door for her. As they came in the front door, a young, elegantly dressed woman came out of one of the rooms, followed closely by Wong’s oldest son.

  ‘Oh, excuse me,’ Wong stammered. Wong’s son didn’t say a word, he turned the young woman away swiftly and into what Lee knew was the sitting room.

  He threw an annoyed glance over his shoulder at his mother before turning away, and as the sitting room door closed they heard the woman say, ‘Since when does the hired help use the front door?’

  Wong scurried off in the direction of the kitchen with Lee close behind her. ‘Hired help? Who was that girl?’ she asked Wong.

  Wong looked embarrassed. ‘That’s Chan’s girlfriend. He said it’s just easier if she thinks I’m the help because then she won’t try talking to me. He hates it when I talk to his girlfriends.’ And seeing the horrified look on Lee’s face, ‘It doesn’t matter, she won’t last. He never stays with one girl for long.’ Wong refused to meet her eyes but Lee could see her pain and shame.

  ‘But you said he was abroad?!’ Lee was outraged. ‘Does he know his dad is dead?’

  ‘Yes, he knows. But he’s been very busy with his new job.’

  Lee couldn’t believe it. ‘I think I need to go in there and give him a piece of my mind,’ she fumed.

  ‘No, Lee! It’s okay, honest, I understand. He means no harm. He has to think of his future too, you know. It’s probably best if you go now. I’m okay. There’s no point you hanging around. I’ll call you later,’ Wong said and ushered Lee out the back door. But she never did call.

  Lee was told by one of Wong’s sons that she had gone back to China and that was the last time she spoke to any of them. Lee tried phoning her but all she ever got was the answering machine. She went around and knocked on Wong’s door but no one ever answered. And then one day she heard through the grapevine that Wong’s house had been sold and rumour had it that she had remarried. Lee wasn’t really surprised; Wong had never really taken to Australia and had often said that she felt like a fish out of water.

  And so the years rolled on. Lee’s son married an Australian girl and they produced four grandchildren in rapid succession. Lee and her husband continued to bushwalk, not just all over Australia, but on annual holidays all over the world. They saw some amazing things and lived the blessed life that only people in countries like Australia get to live, a life free of hunger, free of the pain of losing children to needless tragedies, a life full of love, laughter and good times, where people are rewarded for working without having to work themselves to death. Until one day Lee’s husband died, quite suddenly after a very short illness.

  Lee continued to live on her own for a while but she was often lonely at night. She often went to her son’s house to help look after the children while they both worked, so it was only natural that she should move in with them. She loved her daughter-in-law and they got on like a house on fire. Lee often said that Tina was like the daughter she’d never had. Since Lee’s English was good, they talked about everything and Tina totally understood what Lee was going through and had a lot of respect for how she had raised her son. Lee was happy and loved, and content to live out her life this way. Sometimes she thought of her old friend Wong and wondered if she had found what she was looking for in China, she sure had never found it in Australia.

  Then one day she got a phone call. It was from a nursing home and they were looking for her on behalf of one of their patients.

  ‘Oh,’ Lee said, ‘Who’s your patient?’ only to be told, ‘Mrs Wong Huang.’ Lee couldn’t speak.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, I thought you said Wong Huang.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Is this Mrs Linda Anderson?’

  ‘Yes, it is. Where did you say you were calling from?’ And the nurse named a nursing home that was about fifty kilometres from where Lee lived. ‘How long has she been there?’ Lee asked, only to be told twelve years.

  ‘She never has any visitors,’ the nurse went on. ‘I was told that when she first came here her children would visit her once a month, but then that went down to special occasions, then once a year for her birthday, but the last visit was three years ago now and we have tried to contact her children but they all seem to have moved. Her daughter lives in Melbourne and her sons are somewhere in Western Australia but won’t contact us. She hasn’t been well lately and we asked her if there was anyone else she would like to see and she mentioned you. I’m so glad we’ve found you. Her English is not great but we’re all very fond of her.’

  Lee was dumbfounded. All those grandchildren and no visitors, ever! She felt immeasurably sad for her old friend. Lee promised to go and visit the very next day.

  When she entered her friend’s room in the nursing home the next day, she was shocked and saddened at the sight of her. She was lying propped up with pillows in a hospital bed and she looked ancient and fragile. Her eyes were closed and for a moment Lee thought she was dead. But then the eyes opened and Lee recognised the eyes of her old friend.

  ‘You came,’ Wong said softly. ‘I’m so glad. I’m sorry I never called you back but I felt so ashamed. My sons hate me.’

  ‘But why?’ Lee a
sked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They say my ignorance killed their dad. They say I didn’t try hard enough to learn English. But it was too hard! I could never grasp it like you did. It felt so awkward. And everyone would laugh at me. I saw how they looked at me. They never gave me a go!’

  ‘You never gave them a go, Wong. You never really tried. You lived like you were living in a little China inside Australia and that doesn’t work! You need to become integrated or you’ll become isolated. There are good and bad Australians, but you have to give them a go.’

  Although Wong didn’t want to hear it, you could see in her eyes that she had paid the biggest price when her husband died, but it was too little too late. ‘The grandchildren don’t visit – they say they don’t understand me.’

  She stayed a while longer, each of them catching up on the missed years until Wong’s eyes started to droop. Lee stood up.

  ‘I’ll come back next week. Please, don’t cry.’ She patted her friend’s hand. ‘I’ll be back,’ she repeated, and walked out. She went home to her cosy life, enveloped in the warmth of her family and wished she could warn others who were planning to start a new life in Australia. But it was too late now, she was too old. Two days later she received another phone call from the nursing home, this one to tell her that Wong had died that morning. She sat down and cried.

  No one came forward to claim her friend’s body and no one could be found except her family in China. In the end Lee arranged the funeral. She and her kids were the only ones there to see her laid to rest. Lee was so sad. Wong hadn’t managed to keep up with her family and her adopted country. Since she had never accepted Australia, her family disowned her and in the end she had nothing.

  Wong left a little book titled ‘Speak English Please’. Lee didn’t take much notice but later saw enrolment forms for TAFE that were dated two weeks before her death and found a book that encouraged new Chinese Australians to speak English. ‘Not because you’re losing your culture but because you’re gaining respect’ it said on the cover.

  Wong wrote that she was always frightened that she would lose her culture and heritage by learning English, but that’s never the case. By the time she realised it, it was too late. A tear rolled down Lee’s cheek. Wong’s last wish was to have this book published so no one else would make the same mistake. She wanted the proceeds to go to the Australian government whereby they would make it compulsory for all new Australians to undergo a course, which didn’t force people to learn English but showed them the negatives of not learning it. She kept saying in the book repeatedly, ‘It might sound stupid but I was never told this in China when I applied for a visa, that’s where I would have really listened’.

  Lee went home, kissed her son and daughter-in-law and sat down and started a letter to a publisher.

  She didn’t know if anyone would understand Wong’s message or not. Maybe they would call it racist. But she knew one thing: she had to try, not for Wong or herself, but for the thousands of people coming to the Australian shores each year with the dream of starting a new life but with no rules to go by.

  Saturday 26 January 2013 4 pm

  A Fibonacci Poem For Australia Day

  Irina Dimitric

  Mosman, NSW

  26 January 1788

  That

  Day

  That year

  Long ago

  Marking the landing

  Of the First Fleet – eleven ships

  Carrying the sad cargo of the condemned and damned

  That day today we celebrate as Australia Day – the birth of a new nation

  Bathed in warm sunshine, may she prosper fair and black, or any other pretty colour

  The Promised Land of great riches and blessed Freedom

  Citizenship ceremonies

  For the lucky ones

  Fireworks! Wow!

  Fun day

  For

  All

  Sunday 27 January 2013

  General Mayhem

  JH Mancy

  Tallebudgera, QLD

  The general came to visit me.

  He’s retired now, do you see –

  (you’d never know – he raves on so)

  ‘Attention Jan,’ he says to me,

  ‘How can you let this clutter be?

  Your vowels are foul, your nouns a mess!’

  He’s right you know, I must confess.

  ‘Your writing’s unsightly, your spelling worse.

  Your verbs inexcusable, and as for your verse …’

  Sit General, sit, you must relax,

  It’s all in fun – I feel like an ass!

  ‘Fun!’ he thundered, ‘Take it from me –

  Such trivial utterance ought not to be.

  Life is a serious matter, you hear!’

  He lowered his head, producing a tear.

  I tried not to notice, I tried not to see,

  His serious nature enigma to me.

  General Mayhem you are folly,

  In fact you are a busybody.

  Sit Sir, sit, I do implore,

  Or else you shall be shown the door!

  Monday 28 January 2013

  Want

  Carly-Jay Metcalfe

  Highgate Hill, QLD

  It is as though I have two heartbeats. This is how you make me feel. You give me fucking tachycardia, and then in a fresh breath, my heart softens.

  I want you to lay with me; I want you to read to me. I want to read to you. Soak up Johnny Cash’s entire catalogue with you in me so I can taste your sin.

  I care not for coffee, phone calls, dirty dishes, washing, paperwork or doorjambs that need painting. It all seems so unnecessary and futile, so I forget and clutch your waist with my thighs, squeezing the breath out of you. It’s like I want to make you hurt, but for reasons only I know. Then you catch your breath and surrender heavily into my neck.

  Stars hail down on us like confetti and I want to take you across the street to the park, get you alone; cup your face in my hands. Simple things. It is all simple.

  You make me want to strike piano keys and suck on cherries and peel pears and beat my boots into the ground until my feet ache.

  And all of this terrifies me.

  Like water snatching at ropes, you pull me in like a tide, then let me go. Spank my rosy ass in the nighttime. Hell, even in the daytime; such sweet agony. You’re someone I don’t want to leave behind.

  And all of this terrifies me.

  It’s like:

  shovelling wet sand up a mountain of ash

  exploding fruit

  writing a killer line

  hitting a money note

  swallowing sour milk

  a stitch in my belly

  a sliced finger

  a fresh burn

  a lime tree bursting with fruit

  sun splintering through clouds

  rain on dry land.

  So many things.

  And all of this terrifies me.

  I watch you and your mouth and see it’s a little lopsided. I could unfurl that crooked grin with an eager tongue.

  In the afternoon, we wrestle; bodies laconic with fatigue and marks from hard fingers. I pin your arms and you to wrangle my body to the other side of the bed and I’m yours – at your mercy and you know it; my sex wet all because of a lopsided grin.

  I can’t tear my eyes, hands, mouth off you.

  And all of this terrifies me.

  Tuesday 29 January 2013

  Stuck On Five

  Shane Smithers

  Katoomba, NSW

  The first time I shot him, I felt nothing. The second time I felt surprised, the third I felt relieved, the fourth made me happy and after the fifth I felt sad – there were only five bullets. I have felt sad ever since. I really wish there’d been six bullets, maybe seven.

  I’m not a very emotional person, or at least I wasn’t. Maybe I should say that, before the shooting, I wasn’t a very emotional person. I have been ‘emotional�
�� every day since the shooting. That in itself, being emotional, is to be expected. Apparently trauma can do that to a person. I just wish the one emotion I feel wasn’t sadness. Being sad all the time is … um … well it’s just sad. I can’t find another word to describe it. I think everything is sad.

  I used to listen to the Rolling Stones, they were my favourite band. My favourite song was Paint it Black. Paint it Black is a sad song, about a sad man. I don’t know what my favourite song is anymore. I wonder, do you have to be happy to have favourite things? I suppose you do, because I can’t think of anything I like. Being sad is so miserable. But it’s not all bad.

  At least I don’t have to look at his happy face anymore. He was cremated a week after I shot him. He’s not an emotional man, not anymore. He wasn’t an emotional man when he was alive. He was kind of soulless, narcissistic and dark. The only emotion he ever showed was joy. Real joy! He expressed an unrestrained and deeply fulfilled joy, but only when he caused other people pain. That’s why I shot him. He was hurting someone, someone innocent, someone I loved, even though we had never met. Hurting her gave him real joy. Unfortunately, killing him only brought me sadness. I wish killing him gave me real joy, but it didn’t. I wish I’d had more bullets.

  My psychologist thinks that there is something wrong with me; not because I killed that sadistic bastard, but because I am sad all the time. Apparently, I am supposed to go through several stages of grief and end up resolved. If I was Catholic I could get absolved, but I’m not. I wonder if I was absolved, whether I would become resolved to the facts and not be sad anymore. It’s a horrible thought, surrendering to religion. All that lent, suffering for your sins, purgatory, limbo and heaven. I think heaven is the worst, singing praises and plucking harps all day; I think I’d rather go to hell. Maybe shooting that sadistic bastard will get me a one way ticket. Probably not!

  The one thing I don’t understand is why ‘dispensing vigilante justice’, as the judge called it, automatically lands me in hell. The world is a better place without him. No-one who knew him was sad to see him die, only me, and that was not because he died, but because I killed him. I don’t know why. I don’t regret shooting him. The only thing I regret is that his death was too quick. If there was such a thing as poetic justice he would have suffered more. Maybe, poetry is dead – that makes me sad. Maybe there is a hell and he’s stuck down there. In which case, I don’t want to go to hell.

  I have thought about not torturing him before he died, about how I failed to deliver natural justice, about my inability to really hurt another living being. It was kill him fast or let him live. The first option seemed like the best one. He may not have suffered much, but he didn’t want to die. I am tormented by the idea that he got off too lightly, that he should have rotted in gaol for what he did. Instead, I sit here wasting my life, rotting in an endless sea of sadness. He should have got the life sentence, not me. It’s one of the things that makes me feel sad.

  In hindsight, I should have let the law deal with him, but they never seemed capable of believing that an upright citizen like him could have been guilty of such heinous crimes. Maybe I should regret not going to the police, but I can’t regret killing him. It’s a sick cycle, and it keeps me in an emotional holding pattern, always sad, unable to resolve the problem. Oh yeah, I do have one other regret. I regret not stopping at four shots. At four shots I felt happy, at least I think that that’s how I felt. It’s hard to remember what happiness felt like.

  My parole hearing is tomorrow. The parole board will ask me if I feel remorse, if I regret what I did, if I have changed. They ask the same questions every time I come before them. I tell them I feel sad, that I have felt sad every moment of the last twenty years. But that is never enough. They want me to lie, as if murder is not enough. If I lie and tell them that I am a changed man, that I am a penitent man they will forgive me and set me free, as free as any paroled murderer can be.

  I killed a man who deserved to die; at least he deserved to die as much as any man can deserve to die. I got a life sentence. Prison gave me a home, three meals a day, discipline; perpetual sadness is my real sentence. The only freedom I desire is to be free of the sadness I feel. Tomorrow I will tell the board that I feel sad, that I felt sad the moment the fifth bullet entered his chest, that I have felt sad every moment from then till now. This time I will keep the fact that I feel sad that there was not one more or one less bullet to myself. If they ask I will tell them that I do not regret killing him, that it felt right, just. I will tell them that I can never be happy, because what I did that day still haunts me. In reality it makes no difference what they say, whether they return me to my cell or to ‘society’, either way I have a life sentence.

  Wednesday 30 January 2013

  Henry’s Hope

  Susan Fielding

  Wantirna South, Vic

  October

  Wednesday night’s group is completely different to what you’d expect.

  I’ve only been twice. But there is an instant knitting of souls as soon as the first person starts.

  It’s more balanced gender wise than usual, not that that means much to anyone. A hurting heart is the same for either sex. It’s heavy and sore and usually, by the time it reaches the Wednesday night group, exhausted and close to collapse.

  The majority fit the clichéd profile; distraught, frazzled, looking backwards to middle age, at end of tether, needing relief. But others, like Henry for example, well he just made our hearts melt. There were two of them that night around the same age. Young, way too young to be facing and dealing with this stuff on their own. Which they were. She had been doing it forever though and had the wisdom and self-possession of someone twice her age, whereas for Henry, this was his first time. He was still so ardent, even hopeful. The years hadn’t yet had their chance to grind that out of him.

  He arrived late with the laconic arrogance only his generation can get away with and sat down in the remaining empty chair next to me. I wondered fleetingly, if there had been a choice, whether he would still have sat there. But not to worry, he did.

  He had the casual good looks of a modern day Clark Kent, his spectacles only serving to reinforce the notion. He wore a beanie that made him look even more like the little-boy-lost, needing to be picked up and hugged. I’m sure that was what Lois Lane was always attracted to. There was some fluff on his chin. My motherly instincts felt his desperation to grow something more substantial.

  Unfazed by his youth he shared with disarming honesty about his love for his older brother. This was where maturity sat at odds with his chronological body clock. No sign of awkwardness that could accompany one so tender in years. And no restraint either.

  ‘It’s just so fucked,’ he said emphatically, unaware of the social mores that prohibited the rest of us from such freedom of expression. Yet it was deliciously appropriate. Which was obvious from the vigorous nodding around the room and the release of collective tension amassed over years of rigid self control.

  We identified with his anguish too as he went on to speak about the many incidents and the all consuming nature of them. The isolation that he was starting to realise had eaten away at his life before it had even gotten underway. The sacrifice that he seemed too willing to make was costing him. Not that he was complaining mind you. Just sharing you understand.

  The other mothers were disturbed more than usual too. You could tell. ‘Poor Henry,’ they fussed. ‘What about his parents?’ they admonished. ‘Not fair for one so young.’ But this was its indiscriminate nature. There were no favourites. And it wasn’t fair for any of us.

  We all knew that of course but it was an unspoken understanding. We all had to deal with it. Those of us going through the angry stage had bitterness and resentment colouring our speech. Others who had hit a good patch in the last month were more philosophical. More tolerant. But not boasting in their good fortune. They knew, as we all did, it wouldn’t last.

  I had remembered Sarah from la
st time and had admired her wisdom. Her self-control was text book stuff. How did she do it in the face of the provocation that taunted us all? So I was determined to strike up a conversation with her this time if she showed up.

  I didn’t recognise her at first. She was wearing her hair differently and the sudden blast of warm spring weather had us all in brightly coloured summer-hopeful clothes. Her red dress with the Peter Pan collar looked too young for the lines creasing her face and the top button was unflatteringly left open as if she had dressed in a hurry, revealing a flattened cleavage. And then she began to cry.

  Those more seasoned than I were prepared. The tissues were close at hand and thrust in her lap. Nothing unusual. It was just another stage. ‘It’s the memories,’ she began. ‘They’ve just been flooding back and … I …’

  ‘Need to deal with them,’ we finished her sentence in our heads in silent sympathy.

  We all did. At some point. That’s why we were there. On a Wednesday night. Sitting in a circle amongst strangers instead of at home with our loved ones. The irony that we felt more comfortable on hard upright chairs in a brightly lit seminar room, bonded by our hopeless situations, was lost on no one.

  Except perhaps Henry.

  November

  Henry wasn’t there last night. Well, not for the session at least.

  Funny thing was I’m sure I saw him, just for a moment or two, before we started. I was looking out for him. And Sarah.

  I’d swept the half empty room for a sighting when I arrived. A few of the faces had a vague familiarity about them. But not enough to register recognition or to break through my newly built up layers of protection. So I fussed around the chair I’d chosen. It was safer that way. No fumbling through awkward re-introductions or false cheeriness. When I felt satisfied I’d adverted unwelcome advances I looked back up.

  And that’s when I saw him. Or at least I think it was him. This time he ignored the empty seat next to mine and paused with his back to me. Perhaps he too was having trouble remembering. He moved towards one chair, then changed direction and sat next to a balding middle aged man. The beanie had been replaced by a hoodie and his demeanor seemed less confident than I recalled. He wore an air of indecision that was ill fitting.

  Maybe I was just projecting my own anxiety. It wasn’t until later that I realised what else was missing.

  Irresolute, I hesitated. Hand half lifted to catch his eye.

  But the moment passed and balding stranger was rewarded with his attention instead. And then the distance between us just seemed to stretch out like a yawning chasm.

  And so I lost him. Well, lost sight of him after he got up and wandered to the back of the room. Seemingly to look over the pamphlets. They were laid out ceremoniously as if for a viewing at a private funeral. They could as well have represented the loved ones we all mourned. Each message proclaiming a different aspect of our loss, reassurances we were not alone, information, phone numbers, hope?

  No, never hope. Not even a silhouette of it. They were always very careful about that. No one ever offered the impossible. Those that wrote these tracts knew that was the unforgivable sin.

  And then he must have gone.

  Was it something he’d read, standing there alone, fingering through the corpse of his own pain? Did he lose sight of it then?

  Sarah arrived quite a bit later. She squeezed past the door and edged her way to the last vacant seat which oddly happened to be next to me. Again. We exchanged knowing smiles. We had spoken by text a few times since last month. Short bursts of anger and sympathy traded electronically.

  The room was bulging with newcomers. Extra chairs were fetched periodically as they drizzled in, some alone, some trailing spouses on invisible leashes. The occasional offspring of a lone mother cajoled into sharing resentments about their self obsessed sibling, plumped up the parent’s guilt. But their subjects were always the same. The adult child, early twenties. Umbilical cord still attached. The self destructive centrepiece that the disintegrating household revolved around.

  And then it was my turn to explain why I was there. By this time we were three quarters of the way around the room closing in on the remaining few minutes. The convenor was doing her best to muffle her frustration at those who ignored her carefully worded parameters stretching their moments into monuments of self-absorbing monologues. Professionally trained she reigned in stray words that might imply judgment or criticism, punctuating instead with empathy laden sounds.

  I was there, I began, because I still revolved around the adult child. Not bound by birth however but confined by contract. I had become the substitute parent by a warped twist of fate. Or self deception. Wrapped up in the blindness of the early throws of love, decades earlier, ignorant of the destruction that would follow, as inevitable as night followed day.

  And that was the moment I realised I didn’t want to belong to Wednesday night’s group, no matter how much I did. I didn’t want to be engulfed by the darkness anymore. I yearned for even a shadow of the light I had left behind years earlier.

  And I remembered what it was that Henry had lost too. What was so different about him tonight.

  It dawned on me as the early morning light does, unnoticed at first, creeping out of the dark shadows, gradually washing the horizon in lighter shades of grey. A thought that had been hovering just beyond my grasp since the last meeting. There was no one else there bound like me. By covenant. Not Henry. Not even Sarah.

  The hard upright chair no longer felt so comfortable.

  I cut the umbilical cord that bonded me to their hopelessness as I left.

  Grateful for Henry’s silhouette.

  I hoped he had too.

  Thursday 31 January 2013

  Norman Nightingale

  Kaylia Payne

  Queanbeyan, NSW

  Norman Nightingale was old. Very old. No one knew quite how old, some say that not even Norman himself had kept count. To the few he spoke to, he always said the same thing when the question of his age came up. ‘I am as old as my mouth, and a little older than my teeth.’ But let me tell you right now, his mouth and teeth were much older than anyone else I have ever heard of.

  I did not know Norman personally until a few weeks before the incident. I had heard of him of course. We all had. We knew he was abnormally old, and we knew he had not left the house for a very long time. We knew him as a ghost, a wizard, a vampire, a spy, an alien; the list was endless. He was the butt of many jokes, and the villain in many a campfire horror story.

  We had never talked to him. Only about him. Our own stories scared us away from his house and from him. Even then, I had a feeling he wanted it that way.

  When we got older we knew him only as the crazy old guy. A prisoner of his own making. Someone to feel sorry for as you reached his home, and then forget about when you passed it.

  So I was startled one day as I walked passed his house to mine, when the curtains moved. Only an inch or two at most, but enough for an eye to peer through. I could have even sworn I saw one watching me. But two seconds later the curtains fell back to their original position, and I shook it off. Everyone knew that Norman had never so much as peeped outside, at least not in my lifetime.

  Though I have to say, my appearance was something worth peeping at; and was peeped at, often. It is not every day you see a dead man walking. Okay, so that may be an exaggeration. I’m not dead yet. But I’m much closer than any teenager should be; which is apparent from the skinny yellow frame and air of resigned sadness that I drag about me wherever I go. I look nothing like how I did when I was diagnosed a few years ago. Back when it was classed as treatable. But then the treatments came and went. Now they call it terminal.

  As it must be obvious that I had more on my mind than whether or not a hermit had snuck a curious look at me, I didn’t give it any more thought, and a few weeks passed without the curtain moving again. But then one afternoon, I arrived home to a small while envelope on the doorstep. />
  It was a letter from Norman. I knew that because my impatience had gotten the best of me and my eyes had skimmed down to the three last words on the page. Yours sincerely, Norman.

  The rest of the letter read like this:

  Hello young man.

  I could not help but write to you after I saw you, my poor child. I call you that because I know death and how it drags on the body – I who came so close to it myself at your age. I too have felt death’s bony grip and had the chill of the grave follow me even on the warmest of days.

  I know that you and I have not met, at least not yet, but I feel as if I know you. You see, we are very alike in some ways. Neither of us wants to die. You, because you’re young. Me, because I am a selfish old man.

  It is a dilemma, this death business. But it is one I have solved. If you would like to know how to cheat death, live until your rightful age and then some, come visit me at 6 pm tomorrow.

  But whatever you do, DO NOT teach me anything new. It is a matter of extreme importance.

  Yours sincerely,

  Norman

  Of course, my first instinct was that he was crazy. I was sure of it, especially after reading the last line. But I have to say, I was also intrigued.

  Worried that my parents would see the letter and conclude that I was the target of a perverted old man willing to try any strategy to get a teenage boy into his house, I snuck it down my jacket and smuggled it inside. In the comfort of my own room I read the letter again. My first instinct was right: what a nut-case. I rolled my eyes and went down to dinner. Forgetting about the invitation, or simply ignoring it until 3 am the next morning, I suddenly found myself bolting upright in bed, gasping for breath. I could not remember the dream then, and I can’t remember it now, but for some unknown reason I felt certain that I had to visit Norman tomorrow. After all, I reasoned, it would be an amusing story to tell my friends afterwards.

  At least that is what I told myself.

  However the next day I found myself glancing at the clock repeatedly, counting down the hours until I got to meet Norman. It was more than just wanting an amusing story. Like it or not, he had hit a nerve. I did not want to die. And while it was only the ravings of a shut-in, I was desperate to hear what he had to say. What if he really did know a way to cheat death?

  Obviously I knew deep down that he didn’t. I even knew it on the surface. But I clung onto these few hours of hope with everything that I had. And why not? I had earned it. I had earned these few hours of feeling like somehow, everything would be okay again. He would tell me his secret, I would get better, and everything would back to the way it was before I got sick. It was a nice daydream and I enjoyed it while I could.

  Finally the clock hit 5:45 pm. I practically flew to Norman’s house and banged enthusiastically on the front door.

  Norman opened on the fourteenth knock and glared down at me.

  ‘Come in.’

  I looked up. A little frightened, I’ll admit. He really was a frightening spectacle though, with his dirty old clothes, long matted beard, rotting teeth and leering face. I had a good mind to run for it. However he grabbed me by the arm with his withered old hand and pulled me inside.

  I started choking as soon as I entered his house. The smell of whiskey was overpowering. It clung to everything, smothering the house in a thick blanket. I tried to breathe out of my nose, without Norman noticing. He noticed.

  ‘You get used to it.’

  He then gestured impatiently at a filthy old armchair that was one hefty person away from falling completely apart. ‘Sit,’ he demanded, before disappearing into the kitchen.

  So I sat. And tried to stay calm. Images of Norman grabbing a butcher’s knife from his kitchen filled my brain. Relax. Breathe. I looked around the room to distract myself. It was no different from any other room at first glance. Granted it was dirty and old, much like Norman himself. But it was relatively normal. However the more I looked, the more I felt that something was not quite right.

  Then it hit me.

  There was no TV. No computer. No remotes lying around. As sad as it sounds, this was really strange to me.

  When Norman came back out, he was bearing two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits on a tray. ‘Now,’ he said, settling the tray on a coffee table between us, then himself into another old armchair, ‘let us get started.’

  ‘Before I begin, you must promise me that you will never tell a soul my story. I am telling you this because I have taken pity on you. I am not asking for a repayment of any sort, other than your silence. Do you accept these conditions?’

  I nodded eagerly, though with my fingers crossed behind my back.

  He looked at me for a while. He must have concluded that I looked like a trustworthy sort, because he continued.

  ‘Do you promise that you will adhere to my condition not to teach me anything new?’ he asked sharply.

  I nodded again, but this time that response did not seem like enough. ‘Yes, I promise.’

  ‘Because I am taking an extraordinary risk right now even letting you near me.’

  ‘I promise,’ I repeated again. ‘Cross my heart.’

  Norman smiled his approval before settling down to begin his strange tale.

  ‘When I was young, I loved to learn. It was a passion. It did not matter the subject. I just loved learning for its own sake. I craved knowledge. I collected facts like other children collect stamps. Every day was spent poring over books, talking to people, exploring. I learned more in my first twenty years than most learn in their whole lives. However, I had found that something dreadful was happening to me. I was ageing at an incredible rate. At ten, I looked as if I were thirty. At fifteen I looked as if I were fifty. And at twenty, I looked much like I do now. The doctors could make neither head nor tail of it. I was studied by teams of experts. They could find no reason for it. But I knew what was leading me to an early grave.

  ‘Knowledge.

  ‘And so, at the age of twenty I vowed to never learn anything again. I wrote down a list of every word I knew, collected every book I had ever read, and locked myself away from the world.’

  I stared, open mouthed.

  ‘So you have learned nothing since? Nothing at all?!’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘Nothing,’ he stated matter of factly.

  ‘But how did you see friends? Family? Girls?!’ I asked, placing an extra emphasis on the word girls.

  He sighed, and looked off into the distance. At another life. The shorter life he could have had. ‘I have not contacted my family since I made my decision. As for friends, why, I simply surround myself with people with almost no knowledge at all. They are surprisingly easy to find.’

  ‘What about girls?’ I pursued.

  ‘Girls? What about them?’

  ‘Have you never fallen in love?’

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘Why would I? Knowledge of love, of heartbreak, of divorce and anger? Who needs it?’

  I looked at him. An old man. Older than any man. Yet in a way, he seemed so much younger than me. I felt pity that I had never known before stirring in my chest, though I knew that it was mainly pity for myself. Because in my mind we were one and the same. Norman had been right in his letter; we were very alike, if only because we were both so afraid of death simply because we knew just how close to it we were.

  ‘So that is how I can survive? Lock myself away and never learn anything new? Surround myself with people who know even less than I do?’ I fired these questions at him, my heart racing.

  He nodded.

  ‘But that’s no way to live!’ I cried.

  He looked at me, his eyes empty with years of drinking and regret. ‘It’s the only way to live.’

  He was right. This was my only chance to beat the disease that was slowly eating away at the time I had left. Could I do it? Could I sacrifice everything to simply live in that in-between state? To stay the same age forever? Never knowing any more than I do now?

  Wait a second
. I shook my head and laughed. I was so desperate for a cure, desperate to survive, that I was even listening to the ravings of a lonely old man. I looked at him with sympathy. He really did seem to believe all that he had told me.

  ‘Well,’ I said, getting up and stretching my legs. Trying to act nonchalant. Pretending I hadn’t been affected by what he had said. ‘This has been awesome and all, but I really have to go.’

  ‘What do you mean, awesome?’ he snapped.

  ‘Oh, you know. Cool, great, a grand time and all of that.’

  Then I left.

  He died the next morning. I saw the ambulance pulling away as I did my usual morning walk past his house.

  It could have been a coincidence. It probably was a coincidence. But a small part of me still believes it wasn’t. A small part of me hopes it wasn’t.

  I hope that he realised he had learned something new. Accepted his fate. Then went and did something he hadn’t done for countless years.

  Lived.

  I hope that he ran wild in the streets that night. Making friends, hearing stories, laughing, eating new foods and seeing new sights. I hope that he fell in love millions of times that night. And fell out of love. Experienced the depths of heartache, and the dizzying heights of seeing his dreams come true. Did everything he had been scared of almost his entire life. Learned everything there was to know. Saw everything there was to see. Felt everything there was to feel. And soaked up every inch of knowledge that he could.

  I hope that is what happened.

  Because that’s what I’m planning to do.

  Friday 1 February 2013

  Somewhere Else

  Sallie Ramsay

  Torrens, ACT

  He said the word to himself over and over again. Listened to it, felt it, tried to see it. Some words were easy, like rabbit, for instance: ‘rabbit, rabbit, rabbit’. It sounded like a small hoppy animal, and when he said it he felt his lips hop and he had no trouble matching the picture in his mind of a rabbit with the word. ‘Slither’ was another good one; his tongue slipped and slid around his mouth as he said it. It felt right, sounded right too. But some words were a problem, like ‘else’ for example. What kind of word is that? ‘Else. Else. Else?’ The more he said it the less sense it made; he thought it should mean something wet and squelshy. It sounded and felt wet and squelshy. But ‘somewhere else?’ He understood ‘somewhere’ but when ‘else’ was tacked on he couldn’t make sense of it. He went into the kitchen and asked his mother. She turned away from the sink, towards him, a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth.

  ‘What kind of a bloody silly question is that? You’re really weird. D’ya know that? Really weird. Why doncha go and play somewhere else like a normal kid? Go an’ do somethin’ useful.’